Michele Mouton leads rally

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 30

Michele Mouton leads rally

From JOHN FRIDD in Gisborne Michele Mouton, of France, raced to a commanding 3min 13s lead over Walter Rohrl in the Sanyo World Championship Rally last evening. The lanky West German openly admits that he hates being beaten by a woman, but he could only follow in Mouton’s dust on the special stages around East Cape last evening. As some drivers tucked into a hot meal in Gisborne and others grabbed some well-earned sleep, Mouton had won an amazing four of the first seven special stages of the second leg. Her Audi Quattro teammate, Hannu Mikkola, had taken two fastest times during his amazing charge up through the field. The vet-

eran Finn had started leg two in twenty-sixth place but after the special stages was back up to sixth, and gaining fast on the second overseas Nissan driver, Shekhar Mehta (Kenya). Rohrl gained some consolation by winning stage 13 — which had two long sealed sections — in his nimble Martini Lancia but he shrugged resignedly last evening when asked why the Audis had, proved so much faster than the Lancias. “I need really hard roads, nothing else,” he said. Although the weather on the East Cape was brilliantly fine yesterday the roads were still a little slippery, and this suited the four-wheel-drive Audi Quattros. The second Lancia driver,

Attilio Bettega (Italy), lost time yesterday in a bizarre accident on stage two through the Motu Gorge. He screamed around a corner to find four cows on the road. He missed three but smacked into the fourth and the light car ended up balancing on top of the poor beast, which died in the accident. Bettega had to call for the team helicopter to help lift his car off the cow, annd he lost about seven minutes in the incident. Timo Salonen, of Finland, was holding a steady third place in his heavy Nissan 240 RS and his Nissan teammate, Reg Cook, of Auckland, was seventh and top New Zealander after the demise yesterday afternoon of the Ashley Forest rallysprint winner, Neil Allport (Auckland). Allport went sailing over a steep bank in his Mainfreight Escort RS on special stage 13 and badly damaged the car. Earlier he had fought his way into an amazing fifth place. Paul Adams, also of Auckland, faltered in his giant-killing charge last night when he had a puncture on his Toyota Starlet Sprint. He changed the wheel then could not get the car started and lost a total of llmin getting going again. Another top New Zealand contender dropped out yesterday. Tony Teesdale noticed that his United Nissan Silvia was losing power on the first special stage south of Opotiki and the engine gave up the ghost completely on the next stage, the 39km special from Motu to Waikohu, ending a forceful run by the national champion. The Blomqvist controversy which has marred the rally continued yesterday morning. Overnight the Lan-

cia team had lodged another protest and when the rally stewards met early yesterday morning they decided to overrule the decision made allowing Stig Blomqvist to run under appeal. They decided that they could not comply with the court’s direction and therefore ordered that Blomqvist be excluded from the rally. The quiet Swede waited in his Audi Quattro at the start of the special stage as his team manager appealed the decision but it was to no avail and the rally had lost its second-placed car. Brian Stokes, of Waikuku, was top South Islander as the drivers started tackling the night time special stages on the East Cape. Although his right arm which he broke a month ago, was painful, the Waikuku driver was holding thirteenth place after the long thirteenth stage. John Sergei, of Christchurch, put behind him his

troubled run of Saturday and by the end of stage 13 had brought his Starlet up into seventeenth place. Another Christchurch driver, Ross Jeffery, held thirtieth place in his Escort RS2OOO and the two other remaining South Islanders, Grant Aitken (Dunedin, Datsun Bluebird) and Peter Watt (Omakan, Mazda RX7), filled the next two places behind Jeffery. Mark Errington, of Christchurch, had been performing well in his Escort Sport but is believed to be out of the rally after breaking a stub axle on his car on stage 13. The leaders after special stage 15 last evening were:— Mouton, 4hrs 58min 50s elapsed, 1; Rohrl, 5:02:03, 2; Timo Salonen (Finland, Nissan 240 RS), 5:07:45, 3; Bettega, 5:19:59, 4; Mehta, 5:20:26, 5; Mikkola, 5:26:07, 6; Jim Donald (Auck., Nissan Bluebird Turbo), 5:28:47, 7; Malcolm Stewart (Dannevirke, Escort RS), 5:32:11, 8.