Wednesday 14th April 2004

WRC: New Zealand

Dan Sharp previews the forthcoming dirtfest

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It seems we’re in for an interesting weekend in New Zealand ! After Ford's 1-2 in Mexico they are continuing their tradition of releasing new evolutions of the successful Focus WRC. It was only 12 months ago in the exact same country that we were introduced to the Focus WRC 03, back then Marco Martin managed to pick up 3 stage wins on Day 2 but hydraulic faults caused him to drop a lot of time.

The question is will we see a repeat of last year’s release, or a repeat of last month’s victory? Sebastian Loeb in the new Citroen thinks he has a good shot at walking away with the win this weekend, but with Marco Martin saying, “There’s no reason why we can’t do that. The new Focus has felt good in testing, and I’m looking forward to getting the feel of that on a rally ”, the pressure is bound to build up.

On a personal note I can only sit and hope that Marcus Gronholm’s run of bad luck with the Peugeot ends soon. After all the problems he has had with the 307 WRC he is still managing to hold 3^rd place in the championship, with any luck the reliability of the 307 WRC will be restored and he can start clawing back the points he needs to claim his title back.

All we can do is wait and see – the NZ rally begins tomorrow, over 23 stages they will clock up nearly 400km over fast gravel stages. Don’t forget Sunday 3pm on ITV 1 is the time to watch the infuriatingly poor coverage on terrestrial television!

[kitkatkar]

It's gonna be a goodun i think! Shame Petter's off the pace i enjoyed him being up front last year - a real twist to the season.

It's good that gronholms off the pace though - seemed a little schumacher when he was just win after win after win!

But u have to admit - if the car doesn't break, he does win!

[traction]

Petter wasn't off of the pace in Mexico, just unlucky with regulations/penalties for outside assistance.

I reckon he'll be up there in the mix in NZ.

Ta.