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Atlas F1 Magazine Writers
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Citroen Conquer 'The Monte'
The traditional beginning to the World Rally Championship in Monte Carlo marked the start of the 2003 season, a season during which most of the teams are hoping to see an end to last year's Peugeot domination. In the end, it appeared there was some hope that this had changed, with the highest placed Peugeot being Richard Burns in fifth place, while Citroen filled all three places on the podium. On the other hand this should be tempered with the fact that the Peugeot 206 has never done well on the Monte, and that Marcus Gronholm was leading when he crashed.
Despite a minor scare for Sainz on the final leg, there was no stopping the Citroens who went on to take a 1-2-3 finish, Loeb finishing first on the road for the second year in a row, but the 2003 win is definitely for keeps. Citroen could not have hoped for a better result with their three cars filled the top three placings at the beginning of their return to full-time rallying.
Ford were almost as pleased. With their youthful and inexperienced driving line up, they did almost as well as they could have hoped, with Markko Martin following home the Citroens in fourth after a final leg dice with Sainz for third, Francois Duval in seventh after losing time when he ripped a wheel off after hitting a tree on SS4 while third driver Mirkko Hirvonen rolled out of the rally on Leg 2.
Peugeot had an up and down weekend, though it was more down than up. Gilles Panizzi was penalised two minutes before the rally began for a problem with his GPS system, before retiring on Leg 2 feeling ill. Marcus Gronholm led the rally until his crash in SS9, which saw him lose 30 minutes as he repaired the damaged right front suspension, managing to complete the rally in 13th to score a manufacturers' point for the team. 2000 World Champion Richard Burns had no car troubles throughout the rally, yet finished over three minutes behind the winner in fifth.
The next event is next week in Sweden, an event that is dominated by the Scandinavian drivers thanks to the rally's snowy stages, which could well see 2000 and 2002 World Champion Marcus Gronholm return Peugeot to the winner's list.
Result of World Rally Championship, Round 1 of 14, Monte Carlo Rally, Monaco:
Drivers' Standings: Sebastien Loeb 10, Colin McRae 8, Carlos Sainz 6, Markko Martin 5, Richard Burns 4, Cedric Robert 3, Francois Duval 2, Armin Schwarz 1
Manufacturers' Standings: Citroen 18, Ford 10, Peugeot 6, Hyundai 3, Skoda 2
Makinen Denies Retirement Report
Four-times world rally champion Tommi Makinen denied last Thursday that he had decided to retire at the end of the season. The Finn, 38, was quoted last week as saying that he wanted to win a fifth title in 2003 before calling it a day.
"I was very surprised about those stories because I'd given a little interview in Finland and said one little thing and suddenly it is all over the newspapers. It has been blown out of all proportion."
Makinen had won the season-opening Monte Carlo rally for the last four years, a record, and competed this year in a new Subaru Impreza launched in the Mediterranean principality.
Makinen report provided by Reuters
Entries Build Up As Spring Training Begins
Unsurprisingly CART's leading team Newman-Haas Racing was the fastest present. Reigning International Formula 3000 champion Sebastien Bourdais, who looks set to drive the team's second car, was fastest on the first day of testing recording a lap time less than a tenth from Kenny Brack's pole position lap from 2002. A day later and Bourdais had shaved another four tenths from the time, but fastest now was teammate Bruno Junqueira who with a 1:09.172 lap undercut Brack's pole lap by almost a second.
Also under Brack's time was Patrick Carpentier in the Player's Forsythe car, Carpentier adjusting instantly to the Lola from the Reynard he drove last year. Teammate Paul Tracy took longer to come up to pace but was still fourth fastest. Fifth fastest was Mario Dominguez driving the Herdez Competition Lola, benefitting from his recent shoulder surgery, and for the first time having a teammate on hand to help. Roberto Moreno was tenth fastest in the second Herdez car.
Others present were Alex Tagliani, driving the Rocketsports car for the first time, Oriol Servia in the Patrick Racing Lola, Adrian Fernandez in his own Lola and Michel Jourdain Jr in the Team Rahal Lola. Two remaining cars saw two rookies over a second behind the others, Joel Camathias (Dale Coyne Racing Lola) three tenths up on Mario Haberfeld (Mi-Jack Conquest Racing Reynard). Also present with the Dale Coyne team was Memo Gidley although he didn't complete any laps.
CART has another multi-team test scheduled for February 4-6 at 'Spring Training' at the Sebring Raceway short circuit in Florida. February 23 sees the season kick off at the St Petersburg street circuit.
"This is going to be a very interesting season in Champ Car racing, to say the least,” said Vasser. "With the new rules and the new 'spec' Ford-Cosworth XFE engine, it's going to be very competitive. On paper, we may be a new team, but we have a number of key people with tons of Champ Car experience to guide us. I'm looking forward to the season."
Team Johansson missed the opening pre-season test at Laguna Seca but are expected to be at 'Spring Training' at Sebring this weekend.
Daytona Time
This weekend sees the debut of NASCAR's grand new vision of sports car racing through its Grand-Am series, and most particularly, the Daytona 24 Hour Classic. Grand-Am has turned its back on the high powered prototypes of ALMS and Le Mans to create their new Daytona Prototype class who will compete against the more traditional SRPII (or SR2, which is similar to LMP675), GTS and CT classes.
Rolex 24 at Daytona, leading entries:
Rally
The rally began with a familiar sight, as throughout Leg 1 and the beginning of Leg 2, it was once again the Marcus Gronholm show, with Sebastien Loeb the only driver able to hang on to the Finn's tail, while the two other Citroens of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz battled with Richard Burns. Leg 2 saw the turning point in the rally when on SS9 Marcus Gronholm hit a bank, badly damaging the front right suspension, forcing Gronholm to stop to make repairs, dropping him out of contention. Gronholm's crash was good news for Loeb and his teammates, Loeb the new leader ahead of teammates McRae and Sainz.
Subaru debuted their new WRC2003 Impreza, but it was a short rally for both of the boys in blue. After running in the top six, both Petter Solberg and Tommi Makinen ended their rally on SS5, Solberg destroying the front of his car after sliding off the road while Makinen beached his car after sliding off the road as well. Hyundai and Skoda had quiet rallies, with both manufacturers spending the rally in the lower reaches of the top ten. For Hyundai, Armin Schwarz took the last point thanks to the new points system while teammate Freddy Loix slid off the road into a ditch on SS9, ending his rally, while at Skoda, Didier Auriol finished ninth while his teammate Toni Gardemeister had an engine problem which saw him retire on SS2.
Pos Driver/Co-driver Car
1. Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Citroen Xsara
2. Colin McRae/Derek Ringer Citroen Xsara
3. Carlos Sainz/Marc Marti Citroen Xsara
4. Markko Martin/Michael Park Ford Focus
5. Richard Burns/Robert Reid Peugeot 206
6. Cedric Robert/Gerald Bedon Peugeot 206
7. Francois Duval/Jean-Marc Fortin Ford Focus
8. Armin Schwarz/Manfred Hiemer Hyundai Accent
9. Didier Auriol/Denis Giraudet Skoda Octavia
10. Roman Kresta/Milos Hulka Peugeot 206
"This situation is the same as a year ago when I left Mitsubishi," the official WRC website quoted him as saying on Thursday. "I wasn't sure then and I am not sure now. For the time being I don't feel any pressure to retire, certainly not any pressure from Subaru to retire. What's for the future? Who can say?
CART
With the beginning of the new Champ Car season now less than a month away, 'Spring Training' testing has begun. The first open test of the season saw twelve drivers testing for nine teams, although two of the twelve do not yet have CART programmes confirmed. While twelve cars are promising, six more have to be found in the next three weeks for the CART season to become viable.
In other CART news, American Spirit Team Johansson confirmed its two driver line-up with 1996 series champion Jimmy Vasser to be joined by Toyota Atlantics racer Ryan Hunter-Reay. Johansson started his own racing team in CART's ladder series of support categories before linking with Arena International to race in ALMS/ELMS in a privateer Audi R8R.
Sportscars
Daytona Prototypes
No. Car Drivers
3 Fabcar-Toyota Darius Grala/Joshua Rehm/Oswaldo Negri Jr/
Guy Cosmo
8 Picchio DP2 BMW Darren Law/Dieter Quester/Boris Said III/
Luca Riccitelli
54 Doran-Chevrolet Christian Fittipaldi/Didier Theys/
Terry Borchellar/Forest Barber
58 Fabcar-Porsche David Donohue/Mike Borkowski/Chris Bye/
Randy Pobst
59 Fabcar-Porsche Hurley Haywood/JC France/Scott Goodyear/
Scott Sharp
88 Multimatic-Ford Scott Maxwell/David Brabham/David Empringham
SRPII
No. Car Drivers
5 Lola-Nissan Ross Bentley/Don Kitch/Joe Pruskowski/
Justin Pruskowski
15 Lola-Nissan Peter Macleod/Wade Gaughran/David Gaylord/
Steven Gorriaran
21 Lola-Nissan Chris Bingham/Derrike Cope/Larry Oberto/
Brian DeVries
80 Picchio-BMW Steve Marshall/Shawn Bayliff/Armando Trentini
97 Lucchini-Nissan Piergiuseppe Peroni/Filippo Francioni/
Mirko Savoldi
GTS
No. Car Drivers
6 Porsche 911 GT1 Gunnar Jeannette/Duncan Dayton/Peter Kitchak/
Ron Zitza
7 Saleen S7R Franz Konrad/Airton Dare/Jean Francois Yvon/
Toni Seiler
24 Mosler MT900R Andy Wallace/Michel Neugarten/Jerome Policand
30 Mosler MT900R Martin Short/John Burton/Tom Herridge/David Shep
40 Chevrolet Corvette Simon Gregg/Derek Bell/Justin Bell/Kenny Wilden
GT
No. Car Drivers
20 Ferrari 360GT Max Papis/Augusto Farfus/Andrea Garbagnati/
Emmanuel Collard
34 Ferrari 360GT Mauro Baldi/Justin Keen/Ryan Hampton/
Eric van de Poele
35 Ferrari 360GT Anthony Lazzaro/Ralf Kelleners/Johnny Mowlem
43 Porsche 996 GT3-RS Leo Hindery/Peter Baron/Kyle Petty/Marc Lieb
57 Porsche 996 GT3-RS Gabrio Rosa/Fabio Rosa/Alex Caffi/Andrea Chiesa
66 Porsche 996 GT3-RS Kevin Buckler/Michael Schrom/Timo Bernhard/
Jorg Bergmeister
98 Porsche 996 GT3-RS Larry Schumacher/Martin Snow/Lucas Luhr/
Sascha Maassen
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Volume 9, Issue 5
Atlas F1 Special
Back to the Future: The FIASCO War
Articles
The FIA's Hard Stance: Zero Tolerance
2003 SuperStats: Winter Testing
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