Cyprus has lived up to its reputation, offering a demanding challenge to the FIA World Rally Championship.

Four factory drivers, including Championship leader Marcus Gronholm, have retired today as the crews tackled nine stages in the Troodos mountains and few have escaped without some problems. Despite this the competition has been intense and the Cypriot fans have enjoyed the superb spectacle of seeing the world’s finest drivers battling for every second.

Tomorrow’s stages are based west of Limassol near the old port of Pafos. The first
running of the longest stage of the rally (SS5) may be behind us but it is repeated tomorrow as SS14.

Ford
Ford Martini got off to a flying start, picking up where it left off in Greece earlier this year. However, early rally leader Carlos Sainz insisted after SS4, "These first few stages are not representative of the event and things start to get more serious
now."

The first few stages saw average speeds close to 90kph but this was quickly reduced on the longest stage of the event (the 31.97km SS5) to under 65kph.

Team mate Colin McRae added, "The opening stages were quite kind. The in-car temperatures aren’t so bad but there’s a bit of breeze to help. It’ll get hotter as the day goes on."

Sainz was surprised to set the fastest time on SS6 as he eased off to try and preserve his tyres.

Peugeot
FIA World Rally Championship leader Marcus Gronholm took a cautious approach to the first few stages but still wanted the team to check out his differential settings after finding the stages very slippery indeed. He was suffering from running first on the road but delighted at the performance of Peugeot’s new semi-automatic gearshift system.

François Delecour was setting fast times from the start, but his car was soon bearing the scars of battle at the right rear. On SS6 Gronholm was forced to retire with electrical failure and this has thrown the championship wide open once more.

Subaru
Richard Burns completed SS4 with a suspected lack of turbo boost but the team was able to reassure the Englishman that it was nothing more serious than a throttle problem that could be easily fixed at service. Burns, like many others, completed SS6 with his tyres nearly bald but still inflated. "It’s incredibly hot in there," he said.

Kankkunen was handed a five minute penalty by the stewards for breaching the check-in procedure for the service park after the Troodos regroup.

At the time he was lying seventh but the penalty dropped him to 17^th instead. As the event headed into today’s final three stages, Burns said, "Running first on the road is making it very hard to catch Carlos. There’s no chance of tactics on this rally, you’ve just got to attack as hard as you dare." He attacked a bit too hard on SS8 and lost time with a spin.

Mitsubishi
Tommi Makinen and Freddy Loix got off to a reasonable start although the Finn’s hopes of reaching first service higher than sixth were dashed when he punctured in SS2.

Loix needed some adjustments to his front differential, but was otherwise happy with the progress being made.

Makinen gained a 10 second penalty for late arrival at the start of SS6.

"Risto [his co-driver] made a mistake on the road section that cost us a lot of time," he said. "Unfortunately it was tight to get to the start on time and we didn’t quite manage it. There wasn’t time to properly adjust the tyre pressures and so that cost us more time on the stage itself."

Of the stages he added, "SS5 was OK but I didn’t remember it so well from the recce. It felt slower and longer than I expected."

On the sixth stage Freddy Loix rediscovered the form that made him hot property two seasons ago by setting third fastest time on the stage.

"We found a good rhythm and I’m very happy with the time," said Loix. "We were helped when Didier pulled over and we had a six minute gap ahead of us. The stages really suit my driving but, after all that’s happened in recent events it will take a lot to make me become over confident."

Unfortunately his day also included a roll on the penultimate stage when his throttle jammed open.

SEAT
Didier Auriol’s brisk start was halted on SS4 when a left rear suspension problem forced him to slow. Team mate Toni Gardemeister was complaining that he had differential problems that were making it hard to turn into corners, a fairly major problem on an event as twisty as Cyprus.

More serious was the steering failure that hit Auriol’s car on SS5 and forced him to limp very slowly through both SS5 and SS6, losing a massive amount of time and dropping outside the top 20. He was in considerable pain in his arms and shoulders from having to muscle the car through the stages and co-driver Denis Giraudet said there were few other drivers who would have continued.

The team fixed the steering at service, but on the road section to SS7 Auriol realised that the right rear wheel bearing had failed. With little chance of Auriol completing SS7-9 without losing the wheel, SEAT withdrew the Frenchman’s Cordoba WRC E3 for safety reasons.

Auriol said: "I have pain in every part of my body! I wanted to continue to do my best and try to finish this very tough rally, but it was not possible with a broken wheel bearing. I really can’t believe what happened. However, Toni is going well and so hopefully we can still get a top five place."

Skoda
Armin Schwarz was the first major casualty of the Cyprus Rally. Ironically the one top driver with any experience of the event crashed near the start of the second stage.

"The new car has different performance characteristics to the old one," he explained. "I am still getting used to it so I was just a little too fast into the corner and the car rolled twice."

At the end of SS4 Skoda was completely out of the event.

Spanish driver Luis Climent damaged his sump and was forced to withdraw with no oil in the engine. It was a disappointing day for Skoda but there is better news for next season. Last night the team announced that it is to celebrate its centenary year by entering 12 of the 14 FIA World Rally Championship events in 2001, missing only New Zealand and Australia.

Other teams
Toshihiro Arai (Spike Subaru) was the early leader in the FIA Teams Cup contest from Frederic Dor (F Dor Rally Team) and Krzysztof Holowczyc (Wizja TF Turning Point) who rolled his Subaru in SS1 but continued.

Series leader Abdullah Bakhashab (Toyota Team Saudi Arabia) failed to complete the opening stage. Simon Jean-Joseph completed the first stage with a leaking shock absorber in his Cilti Sport Impreza.

Group N saw Gustavo Trelles establish an early lead in the defence of his quadruple FIA World Championship crown ahead of Gabriel Pozzo, Manfred Stohl (the current
series leader) and Claudio Menzi.

Trelles believes that, like Makinen’s works Group A car, he had the wrong gearing for Finland but he is now revelling in a rejuvenated performance.

Tyre Facts
Michelin
The work by Michelin on this type of rocky stages, which produced a 1-2 finish with Ford-Michelin on the punishing Acropolis in June, has continued to reap benefits on similar terrain today in Cyprus.

Although wear rates have been as expected on Leg 1, Carlos Sainz (Ford-Michelin) has driven with his head to collect seven fastest stage times from 9. Michelin’s partners have used the Michelin Z pattern throughout the day in the 10 compound/construction, which have proved an effective match for the wheel spin associated with today’s twisty,
slow speed, rocky stages.

Pirelli
Richard Burns (Subaru-Pirelli) set two fastest times during the day using Pirelli’s PZero K-pattern tyre but believes he could have set more this afternoon had he not found himself first on the road following Gronholm’s retirement.

Crews have experienced a lot of tyre wear but few punctures, all of which have been effectively dealt with by Pirelli’s EMI anti-deflation system.

During the day Pirelli’s main drivers used three different patterns; K, KC and XR depending on their road position. Mitsubishi-Pirelli drivers Trelles, Pozzo, Stohl and Menzi hold the top four places in Group N.

Unofficial Results at the end of Leg 1
Outright
1 Sainz Ford Focus WRC 2:23:35,6
2 Delecour Peugeot 206 WRC 2:24:55,8
3 Burns Subaru Impreza WRC 2:24:59,1
4 McRae Ford Focus WRC 2:25:17,9
5 Martin Toyota Corolla WRC 2:26:41,0
6 Gardemeister Seat Cordoba WRC 2:27:59,1
7 Makinen Mitsubishi Lancer 2:28:00,2
8 Arai Subaru Impreza WRC 2:30:14,5
9 Kankkunen Subaru Impreza WRC 2:30:59,2
10 Jean-Joseph Subaru Impreza WRC 2:31:59,6

Group N
1 Trelles Mitsu Lancer Evo VI 2:32:37.3
2 Pozzo Mitsu Lancer Evo VI 2:33:41.1
3 Stohl Mitsu Lancer Evo VI 2:33:53.5

Teams Cup
1 Arai Subaru Impreza WRC 2:30:14,5
Spike Subaru
2 Dor Subaru Impreza WRC 2:58:16.2
F Dor Rally Team