The championship picks up again tomorrow morning on the rough and twisty roads around the island of Cyprus. This is the first of three very tough events to start the summer, with this rally quickly followed by Turkey and the Acropolis. This means a lot of damaged cars and many retirements. All of the teams are sporting relatively new cars, and none of them have cut their teeth on rough terrain, so this weekend will be good indication of how the teams have done developing the latest WRC iterations.
So, who are the favorites? At this point, it’s Petter Solberg and Marcus Gronholm. The Peugeot 307, while suffering some reliability issues on the opening legs of the championships, has the most kilometers under its tyres than the other cars. Gronholm, however, has a less than stellar record on these rough and twisty events. Solberg, while driving a newer Impreza, won here last year, and always does well on the rough stuff. Solberg has already said he plans to run a consistent race, just to see what happens to his rivals. If he can post decent times and stay out of trouble, he should be able to stand atop the podium on Sunday.
Keep on eye on the youngsters this weekend as well. Despite the fact that neither Ford’s Francois Duval or Subaru’s Mikko Hirvonen have much experience in this event, they may fair well if they play it safe. Both could finish in the top five if they take care of their cars and the rest of the field runs into trouble.
Markko Martin should also be a factor, but the reliability of the newer Ford Focus could be an issue, with Martin already damaging the turbo during the shakedown. Citroen isn’t expecting much, either, with the newer Xsara, though both Carlos Sainz and Sebastien Loeb need a decent result to get their championship aspirations back on track. Mitsubishi also isn’t expecting much after a horrible race in New Zealand, though it would mean a lot for the team just to get both Lancers to finish ramp on Sunday.
My Top 8
1. Petter Solberg
2. Marcus Gronholm
3. Markko Martin
4. Carlos Sainz
5. Mikko Hirvonen
6. Harri Rovanpera
7. Francois Duval
8. Sebastien Loeb
Posted on 13 May 2004