MITSUBISHI LANCER DRIVER GARDEMEISTER TAKES POINTS FROM MONTE CARLO
RALLYE MONTE-CARLO
20 JANUARY 2007
LEG 3
Finnish driver Toni Gardemeister made his debut in a Mitsubishi Lancer WRC on this week’s Monte Carlo Rally. Despite his inexperience of the car – he only drove it for 90 kilometers before the start – he spent much of the event challenging for fourth position. Unfortunately for Gardemeister and co-driver Jakke Honkanen, they slipped down the order on Saturday’s third leg, eventually ending the event in seventh position.
Toni Gardemeister/Jakke Honkannen
Gardemeister was delighted with the performance of the Mitsubishi Lancer WRC, and posted top six times regularly throughout the opening round of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship, which was based in Valence, rather than the principality of Monaco. The event had undergone extensive changes, the main one being the move to the Ardeche region, 400 kilometers north of Alpes-Maritimes, the traditional home of the rally. The event did visit Monte Carlo, when the competitors tackled the lower half of the world famous grand prix circuit this morning.
Gardemeister said: "I have enjoyed this event. The Mitsubishi has been very good for me. The car ran without any problems through the rally. It took me some time to get used to the Mitsubishi as I hadn’t competed in it before, but it was very stable and nice to drive. We had a small brake problem in some of the faster stages. I’m not sure what was the cause, but it was not a technical problem with the brakes. The fight for fourth place was very hard, everybody was pushing to the limit. I usually go well in the changeable conditions, which are usually typical of this rally, but this time the weather was not quite so normal. We had some damp stages, but there was no snow at all, which wasn’t really like the normal Monte Carlo."
Xavier Pons/Xavier Amigo
Gardemeister’s team-mate Xevi Pons damaged the transmission on the first stage on Friday morning, forcing him to continue in the event under the Superally regulations, which dropped the Spaniard’s Mitsubishi Lancer WRC down the field to 25th at the end.
Richard Frau/Jean-Paul Ayme
There was more success for Mitsubishi in the Group N category, where the Lancer Evolution IXs of Richard Frau and Jean-Paul Ayme clinched the second and third podium spots in a typically hard-fought battle for production glory.
"It was a strange Monte Carlo," said Frau. "The weather was always so warm, it was odd for this event. I didn’t have the right set-up in the front differential, which was causing my tires to be worn too quickly, but otherwise it was good. There were so many spectators, it was incredible at times. I have really enjoyed the rally and it was very good to compete on the grand prix track at the finish as well."
Andreas Aigner/Klaus Wicha - Redbull Rallye Team
Frenchman Sebastien Loeb and his Monegasque co-driver Daniel Elena celebrated their return to the sport, after Loeb broke his arm in September, with a fourth Monte Carlo victory from five starts. Citroen took a one-two on the debut of the C4 WRC, as Dani Sordo clinched the runners-up spot ahead of Marcus Gronholm’s Ford.
The next round of the FIA World Rally Championship is the Swedish Rally, February 8-11.
-MMSP
Saturday's leg of Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo was the final day of proper rally stages. The rally will continue for another day in the Principality with the Monaco Circuit superspecial as the only stage to be run on Sunday.
For the third day, the Citroën Total World Rally Team drivers completed the leg holding first and second in the overall classifications. Sébastien Loeb and Dani Sordo began the rally holding the top two positions respectively and ended Saturday's stages in the same position which they began the rally two days prior.
Citroën's release of the C4 WRC was extremely impressive for the team and though both Citroën drivers relaxed on Saturday's stages, their dominance on tarmac was firmly felt throughout the stages.
Marcus Grönholm found himself in an unfamiliar position, and one that his team-mate Mikko Hirvonen was all too familiar with in 2006, 'no-man's land'. Grönholm was unable to catch the Citroëns ahead of him but he was too far ahead for the remainder of the FIA World Rally Championship field behind him to catch-up. The Finn was not happy with his pace, but as the rally progressed, he seemed to realize that he would be unable to match the C4 WRC under the conditions of the weekend.
Mikko Hirvonen
Fourth overall at the end of the leg was Mikko Hirvonen, who may have had the most inspiring drive of any of the WRC competitors during the day. Hirvonen and Chris Atkinson, who completed the leg fifth overall, had a heated battle throughout the day's six stages, but it was the young Finn who pulled ahead and brought fourth overall to the rally's final proper day, though by only 0.8 seconds.
Atkinson finished the day with two stage victories, however - Subaru's first tarmac stage win since Monte Carlo last year.
Atkinson's team-mate, Petter Solberg, completed the leg sixth overall. Solberg was optimistic about both his Impreza WRC and the BF Goodrich tyres his team ran through the weekend. Solberg did complain of grip issues early in the event but found a comfortable pace which he held until the day ended.
Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson
Toni Gardemeister had a hard-fought battle with Solberg during the rally's third leg, but the Finn was unable to move beyond the former champion to claim sixth position. Gardemeister finished Monte Carlo third last year and had hoped for a higher position on the leaderboard this weekend. A solid, trouble-free drive saw him finish Saturday's stages with an impressive performance to take seventh overall into Sunday.
Jan Kopecky, driving the only Skoda Fabia WRC in this weekend's event, finished the third leg eighth overall. Kopecky has driven a very clean rally and though he was in a heated battle with Jari-Matti Latvala during the final two stages of the leg, he was aided with holding that position after Latvala suffered a minor, but costly off on the rally's final stage. Latvala dropped two places on the leaderboard and is effectively out of the hunt for a point-finish.
Jan Kopecky
Though many of the positions carried into the rally's final stage will not change after the Monaco Circuit superspecial, the one battle that will be decided Sunday is the one between Atkinson and Hirvonen. Separated by less than a second, the two drivers will be keen to claim that position for their teams and themselves.
-WRC.com
The Mitsubishi Motors Motorsports Privateer squad:
Toni Gardemeister/Juha Honkanen
Xavier Pons/Xavier Amigo
-photos: MMSP
Toni Gardemeister has been in three different World Rally Cars during the last three years of Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo. In 2005, he ran the event in a Ford Focus RS WRC. In 2006, he drove an Astra backed Peugeot 307, and this year he is running a Mitsubishi Lancer. The Finn has finished in a podium position in the last two seasons and in 2007 he is not losing any hope of having another strong finish.
Gardemeister has been swapping places on the overall leaderboard during the second leg of the rally between Manfred Stohl and Mikko Hirvonen. After the last stage of the day, the St. Martial - Le Chambon - Beleac test, he now goes into the final leg of the event sixth overall in the classification, 6.7 seconds behind Hirvonen.
"It is not the end yet," Gardemeister said at the end of the last stage of the day. "It gets difficult when the stages are dry, but when it's slippery we're ok."
The battle for fifth continues tomorrow before the World Rally Cars head to Monaco Saturday evening for the overnight haul at the Principality which will host the superspecial stage Sunday morning around the harbour in the Formula 1 circuit.
-WRC.com
