The Rally of Turkey started today, and, as expected, it’s been a rough event with several notable retirements. But first, the good news. Harri Rovenpera is leading the rally by a whisker over Francois Duval and Tommi Makinen. Other pleasant surprises include Giles Panizzi holding fourth place in his privateer Peugeot, and Armin Schwarz in seventh (he was as high as second).

Now the bad news. Petter Solberg retired during SS4 when he spun in a corner and mashed his suspension. Sebastien Loeb also retired, but in a more bizarre way–he got lost between stages and ran out of fuel. Most of the time, the cars are required to drive on their own between stages on open roads, and Seb’s co-driver obviously had some issues with his map. Marcus Gronholm had power steering issues on SS3, dropping him over 3 minutes off the lead. Gronholm isn’t pleased and he sounds like a poor loser (he doesn’t want to race anymore ). Richard Burns also had early issues, but is beginning to find his form and is moving up the leaderboard.

The remaining Citroens of Colin McCrae and Carlos Sainz have been doing well, especially they’ve been running first on the stages, effectively sweeping the roads for the other drivers. If the cars can handle the beatings, they should be in the fight for a podium spot.

Posted on 28 February 2003