Mitsubishi Lancer WRC04 crew of Gilles and Hervé Panizzi scored manufacturer points for Mitsubishi in Rally Finland, the ninth round of the FIA World Rally Championship. The French crew arrived at the finish in 11th position, sixth of the nominated crews. Team-mates Kristian Sohlberg and Kaj Lindström may have retired during the second leg, however the Finns demonstrated the Lancer WRC04s potential as they traded split times with the leading crews in one of the fastest and most spectacular events of the 16-round series.
“This is the first rally that neither car has had major problems, demonstrating that just over half-way through the season we are slowly getting the reliability,” commented Sven Quandt, Head of Mitsubishi Motorsport. “Kristian performed very well and even though he was forced out, he showed the car is capable of being fast. It will now be interesting to see what happens in Germany, our first full Tarmac round.”
Just 41 of the original 68 crews started the final leg this morning, five of whom were running under SUPERally regulations and therefore not eligible to appear in the overall classification. Overcast skies underlined an earlier forecast of rain, however as the morning progressed, cloud gave way to blue skies and the crews enjoyed another almost perfect day of world-class motorsport. The leg took in two loops of two stages to the west of the university town of Jyväskylä and with 95.26 competitive kilometers to complete, it was no easy cruise to the finish.
Gilles and Hervé Panizzi maintained their 11th position throughout the leg, the French pair focused on trying different set-ups as they and the team continue to learn more about the Lancer WRC04.
“We have run different shock absorber settings today and tried various things, purely to understand what happens under different conditions,” commented Gilles. “Overall I am happy after this rally, especially as I made no mistakes. The team has worked very well and I am pleased for the engineers. The reliability has been good, we've all learned more and we have the car at the finish in the points.”
Mitsubishi driver “Gigi” Galli scored an emphatic victory in the Group N category, the Italian winning by an impressive margin of 4 minutes 19 seconds in his privately-run Lancer Evolution.
The FIA World Rally Championship now heads back to central Europe for the 10th round of the series, Rallye Deutschland (August 19-22). This is the first full asphalt round of the season and Gilles and Hervé will be joined by “Dani” Solà and Xavier Amigo in what is viewed as a tricky and challenging sealed surface event. Solà does however appear to have the measure of the German roads, the Spaniard having won the Junior and Production Car categories in 2002 and 2003 respectively.
