Full Story from Rally-Live

Dominant in Corsica, Markko Martin confirmed the Ford Focus' dominance on asphalt. The Estonian wins the 40th edition of the Rally Catalunya, followed by Marcus Gronholm in second place and Carlos Sainz in third position.

Corsica... and now Catalunya
The Ford Focus really impressed in Corsica. Markko Martin and Francois Duval were clearly the fastest in that round. So it is no surprise that the Focus was also competitive in Catalunya, since both events are asphalt rallies.

Right from the start, Duval and Martin were in the leading group but were not able to distance Sebastien Loeb who finished in the lead at the end of leg one. Francois Duval retired in the last stage of leg one, leaving his teammate all alone to defend Ford's colours.

A duel between Loeb and Martin was taking shape. The Estonian was only two seconds behind the Citroën driver but unfortunately Loeb had to retire in the very first stage on Saturday morning. Martin was left with no serious rival and managed a substantial advantage over the other drivers to win his third victory of the season.

-more-

 

Gronholm back on the podium
Marcus Gronholm didn't climb on the podium since his victory in Finland. The Finn went through a difficult period that included unfortunate driving errors and technical problems with the 307.

Many times the Finn was in a position to achieve excellent results only to retire later in the race. Obviously, this frustrating situation didn't please Gronholm. This podium in Spain proves the 307's potential on asphalt.

However the French team didn't get a perfect reliability score in this event. Freddy Loix retired early in the race when his car failed because of electrical problems.

A podium to say goodbye
The Spanish Star drove his last WRC event on his home soil. Carlos Sainz will retire at the end of the season and today Carlos said 'goodbye' to his fans by finishing on the podium... for the 97th time in his amazing career.

It is a third consecutive podium for Sainz, his eighth since the start of the season.

It is a good performance for Citroën, even if Sebastien Loeb probably could have won this event if he didn't retire because of a broken oil sump.

Sarrazin in front of Solberg!
Stephane Sarrazin continues to impress after competing for the third time in a WRC event. The Frenchman almost finished in the points in his very first WRC race in Germany. In Corsica, Stephane drove to an impressive sixth place finish. Today Sarrazin clinches fourth place at the end of the Rally Catalunya. Hard to imagine a better start in the WRC!

The Spanish event wasn't so good for the official Subaru team. Petter Solberg's best efforts didn't bring the kind of results the team is used to achieve on gravel. With his two consecutive wins, Markko Martin is now only three points behind Solberg in the drivers' championship...

Mikko Hirvonen improved his pace during the last leg of the rally. The Finn was often close or even slightly better than Solberg, which helped him to make a nice climb up in the standings to finish in eighth place.

Clear improvement at Mitsubishi
The performance of the Lancer WRC is certainly better than it was before Mitsubishi's absence from the World Championship. On top of that, the Japanese team was able to bring their three cars to the finish, showing that the Lancer's reliability is also getting better.

Dani Sola and Gianliugi Galli finished in sixth and seventh places respectively, which is an excellent performance by the two young drivers. Gilles Panizzi spent more time testing different set-ups than trying to get a top result; the Frenchman had a tremendous start on day one but later on he lost a lot of time by choosing the wrong tyres for the road conditions.

Two Fabias at the finish
Toni Gardemeister and Armin Schwarz were able to set good stage times in this rally even if the Fabia remains more at ease on gravel. This weekend was the last WRC event for Skoda in 2004, the team decided not to compete in Australia.

Gardemeister and Schwarz finished in ninth and eleventh places respectively. Jan Kopecky, who competed in the WRC for the first time, retired early in the race.

Hugo GIGUERE
© CAPSIS International

 

All ford needs to do is bring the damn RS focus over here we want turbo focus!!!! that thing hauls.

 

have fun at IGT!