Day one of the Rally Argentina was rough and tumble and full of surprises. Marcus Gronholm was leading the charge early, but the Subaru’s of Tommi Makinen and Petter Solberg, and Citroen’s Carlos Saniz were keeping the margin close. Makinen began to charge on SS5, and pulled within 2 seconds of his fellow Finn. Solberg saw his chances disappear with a roll on SS4, though he only lost 2 minutes and should be in the points by the end of the rally. Makinen’s campaign was cut short on SS7 with a gearbox problem that left him to drive the day’s longest stage stuck in second gear. Suddenly Gronholm had a nice cushion until he hit a rock and destroyed a wheel. In case you’re weren’t sure if Gronholm was the best driver on the circuit, here’s more proof. He finished the stage, lost only about a minute to the new leaders, and should be fighting for a place on the podium by the end of the weekend.

So, heading into day two, Carlos Sainz is on top followed by Markko Martin and a brace of Peugeots (Burns, Rovanpera, and Gronholm). Seb Loeb is right behind them, so it should be an exciting day.

It will be interesting to see how this effects Makinen’s decision to return next year. He’s said he’s happy with Subaru, and happy driving with Solberg, but he’s had so many disappointments with Subaru….he was fighting for a win here last year when a shunt on the last day put him out of commission. If Tommi leaves Subaru (and retires) expect them to pursue Richard Burns or Colin McRae (who, by the way, also bowed out on day one with engine problems).

Yahoo Update

Managed to get my Yahoo mail account back. Seems the person who hijacked it was selling NBA tickets on eBay. Oddly, they didn’t delete any of my emails, and in fact, none of the new messages I had were even opened.

Posted on 10 May 2003