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Sunday, Apr 24, 2005

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Sport - Racing : Motor

A dream start by Valimaki

Stan Rayan

CANBERRA: After the dust settled down, the Finn was the king. Jussi Valimaki gave his new team MRF a dream start in the Subaru Rally of Canberra, the opening round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship, here on Saturday.

Valimaki finished on top on the first day of the two-day rally and holds a slender 1.8s lead over his closest competitor, Subaru's Toshihiro Arai.

"The competition was very tough but it was a very good day. The car and tyres were very strong. The MRF tyres were the biggest surprise for me. They are very good," said Valimaki, who drives a Mistubishi Lancer Evo-8.

Huge dustbowl

For the rallyists, the Australian Capital was a huge dustbowl on Saturday. "We couldn't see anything because of the dust. And since we are in a new team and this being our first rally, we started very carefully early," said the Finn, who has his countryman Jarkko Kalliolepo as his co-driver.

Each of the 48 cars were flagged off after a gap of two minutes in the first three stages. But with the dust turning out to be a big problem, the drivers requested the organisers to increase the margin between cars to three minutes for better visibility.

The organisers agreed and Valimaki was quick to grab the gains. He took a small lead over Arai, currently the leader in the Production Cars World Championship, in the third stage and grabbed a huge six-second advantage in the fourth.

With the fourth gear troubling the MRF star after the fifth stage in Saturday's ten stages, Arai slowly moved ahead. But Valimaki pushed hard and came up with some splendid timings in the penultimate stage at Kowen South. He also won the hearts of the local crowd with his sliding turns and excellent control at the Fairbairn Park super special stage. Valimaki's first leg lead on Saturday may be small but he carries a huge psychological advantage over Arai in Sunday's second leg.

Team MRF's other entry, Japanese Katsuhiko Taguchi was forced to withdraw in the third stage this morning after a log rammed into his radiator. The damage was set right this evening and Taguchi is expected to compete in the second leg.

Crocker dominates

Meanwhile, Australia's home stars Cody Crocker and Dean Herridge, both competing in the international section, dominated the overall rally taking the top two positions. Valimaki and Kalliolepo were third and Japanese Arai was perched on the fourth rung.

Valimaki, however, does not plan to attack the two Australians for the overall lead on Sunday. "We're just concentrating on the APRC here. Cody and Dean have a big lead, I must take too many risks to catch up with them. I don't want to do that. We'll just concentrate on Arai," said the Finn.

Valimaki's car was the only Mitsubishi, which figured in the top six, the rest were all Subaru Imprezas, which speaks a lot about the Finn's class.

The results (APRC, leg 1): 1. Jussi Valimaki/Jarkko Kalliolepo (MRF, Finland, 1:28:01.5), 2. Toshihiro Arai/Tony Sircombe (Subaru, Japan/UK 1:28:03.3), 3. Geoffrey Argyle/Jeremy Sinclair (Mitsubishi, New Zealand, 1:30:23.7), 4. Brian Green/Fleur Pedersen (Mitsubishi, New Zealand, 1:36:35.0), 5. Dermott Malley/Stephen Smith (Mitsubishi, New Zealand, 1:37:06.4), 6. Mitsuhiro Kunisawa/Simone Bachmann (Subaru, Japan/Australia, 1:40:42.7).

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