A short day to start to the Cyprus rally, though two stages were over 38km in length, making it a rough day in the intense heat. Peugeot has shown speed early, with Harri Rovanpera leading the rally til the last stage (when Marcus Gronholm snatched the lead) and Gilles Panizzi, in the privateer 206, holding 2nd til the last stage as well (he currently sits in 4th). Subaru was looking to have a great rally, with Tommi Makinen and Petter Solberg both in the top five, but then disaster struck on SS4, and Tommi ran into steering problems, causing him to loose stacks of time on the leaders. Solberg ran well however, and sits in 3rd, only 10 seconds behind Gronholm. Given what Petter’s strategy was to be (relax on day one and just survive, then put his foot down on days two and three) you’ve got to think he’ll be competing for the top step on the podium.

Seb Loeb is holding down 5th place at the moment, 40 seconds off the pace. The rest of the top ten drops off quite a bit, with Markko Martin, Carlos Sainz, Colin McRae, and Richard Burns all over a minute behind the leaders. Burns probably has the best shot at gaining ground tomorrow, as he played the role of road sweeper running first today. The rest of the lot just has to hope that the leaders run into trouble….

Posted on 20 June 2003