The Rally of Turkey: From lead to retirement

Harri Rovanperä started the Turkish round of World Championship Rallies convincingly. The first leg run, he was in the lead. Halfway through the rally, he dropped from first to tenth after having a shock absorber problem. Finally, he was forced to retire from the race on the last special stage of leg 2, due to a transmission failure.

Another rocky rally
Harri Rovanperä and Risto Pietiläinen were very motivated to start their second WRC event of the season. The Rally of Turkey, replacing Safari Rally, which was dropped out of the series for this season, was a new acquaintance for everyone. This gave extra importance for carefully prepared pace notes as well as the work of the crew in the gravel note car.

- There are so many rocks here that you just can't manage to mark all of them in the notes, because it's very twisty at the same time. As we have no championship points so far, we have the advantage of starting behind all the others, so I think the roads will be a little cleaner for us. But on the other hand, there might be stones not only on the sides of the roads, but also on the driving line, Rovanperä analysed the meaning of his road position.

- The car felt good in the shakedown. We seem to have found the right set-ups, so I'm confident that our pace will be good enough. Anyway, we'll have to manage to keep the car in one piece, and finding the right pace is certainly going to be tricky, Rovanperä said before the start.

First leg at top pace
On the super special of Thursday night, Rovanperä posted the tenth fastest time, losing 1,8 seconds to the winner, his teammate Marcus Grönholm. On the opening stage of Friday morning (SS2, Simena 1, 2,7 km), Rovanperä clocked a shared stage win. Subaru's Petter Solberg matched Rovanperä's time and moved into overall lead , but the Finn was trailing only 1,7 seconds behind. Citroen's Carlos Sainz was third, 0,1 seconds slower than Rovanperä. On stage 3 (Phaselis 1, 16,4 km) Rovanperä was only the sixth quickest, which brought him down to sixth also on the overall charts. His difference to the leading Solberg was then 14,8 seconds.

- On the third stage, a front wheel hit a stone wall, but fortunately nothing was broken, Rovanperä explained.

By clocking the fastest time on the longest stage of the day (SS4, Silyon 1, 29,9 km), Rovanperä climbed into the overall lead. On the following stage (SS5, Perge 1, 14,9 km), Rovanperä was second, 0,8 seconds slower than Ford's Markko Märtin. To finish the day, the long stage was run for a second time (SS6, Silyon 2, 29,9 km). Again, Rovanperä succeeded in posting the stage win, taking half a minute off his time of the same morning. Coming into the overnight break with the first leg completed, Rovanperä held the lead by a gap of 20,7 seconds over Sainz.

- We have been driving dodging the rocks, while trying to attack as well. The stages are quite rough, I must say. Because of the number of rocks, you have to be very focused all the time. Nevertheless, on Saturday we'll have to push hard because there are many who are trying to catch us, Rovanperä told.

Leg 1/3, results 6/18
1. Harri Rovanperä, Peugeot. 1 h 14'50,5" (76,4 km/h)
2. Carlos Sainz, Citroen +00'20,7"
3. Francois Duval, Ford +00'29,5"
4. Tommi Mäkinen, Subaru +00'31,4"
5. Gilles Panizzi, Peugeot +00'37,9"
6. Richard Burns, Peugeot +00'56,5"
7. Colin McRae, Citroen +01'03,3"
8. Armin Schwarz, Hyundai +01'07,1"

Mid-way lead changed into retirement
Rovanperä started the second leg of the rally by taking a stage win (SS7, Olympos 1, 20,4 km), thus opening his advantage over Sainz into half a minute. On the next stage (SS8, Kumluca 1, 28,9 km), Harri was 10 seconds slower than the fastest driver, and his lead margin went back to 22 seconds.

- 13 kilometers into the stage, the right rear wheel hit a rock and we had to drive the rest of the stage with the wheel leaning sideways. Luckily there was a service break right after the stage.

On the stage following the morning's service (SS9, Phaselis 2, 15,5, km), Rovanperä was the third quickest, 0,7 seconds faster than Sainz, though, which extended his overall lead into 22,8 seconds. The mid-rally situation:

Results 9/18
1. Harri Rovanperä, Peugeot. 2 h 08'27,8" (74,8 km/h)
2. Carlos Sainz, Citroen +00'22,8"
3. Tommi Mäkinen, Subaru +00'46,7"
4. Francois Duval, Ford +00'58,8"
5. Richard Burns, Peugeot +00'59,7"
6. Gilles Panizzi, Peugeot +01'19,1"
7. Colin McRae, Citroen +01'29,7"
8. Freddy Loix, Hyundai +02'31,1"

The following stage (SS10, Myra 1, 24,0 km) was to turn out fatal for Rovanperä, as that's where the right rear wheel of his car hit a stone, resulting with the top mounting of the damper getting broken.

- A couple of kilometers into the stage, at the end of a left hand corner, the right rear wheel hit badly a rock. The top mounting of the damper was broken, and it punched through the bodywork. We tried to repair the damage on the stage and also after it. There was one more stage to limp through before getting to the service. We managed to fix the dampers at some extent, but the transmissions were in such bad condition by then that the car just died away on stage 13.

Final results 18/18
1. Carlos Sainz, Citroen 4h 32'14,1" (74,5 km/h)
2, Richard Burns, Peugeot +00'47,9"
3. Francois Duval, Ford +01'46,5"
4. Colin McRae, Citroen +02'09,1"
5. Gilles Panizzi, Peugeot +02'41,6"
6. Markko Märtin, Ford, + 03'24,9"
7. Toni Gardemeister, Skoda +05'01,0"
8. Tommi Mäkinen, Subaru +07'18,6"