RALLY NEWS NO.5                   Overnight Fri/Sat.

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 7 (Super Special)
1st (2) Marcus Gronholm/Timo Rautiainen (Peugeot) 1.07.06.6
2nd (11) Petter Solberg/Philip Mills (Subaru) 1.07.54.9
3rd (6) Markko Martin/Michael Park (Ford) 1.07.57.6
4th (4) Carlos Sainz/Luis Moya (Ford) 1.08.11.5
5th (3) Harri Rovanpera/Risto Pietilainen (Peugeot) 1.08.51.5
6th (10) Tommi Makinen/Kaj Lindstrom (Subaru) 1.08.55.2
7th (5) Colin McRae/Derek Ringer (Ford) 1.09.06.1
8th (1) Richard Burns/Robert Reid (Peugeot) 1.09.08.0
9th (21) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Xsara) 1.09.20.4
10th (18) Freddy Loix/Sven Smeets (Accent) 1.09.57.9
Just outside leaderboard: 11th Kankkunen 12th Mark Higgins 13th Armin Schwarz: 14th Gardemeister 15th Panizzi

The last stage on Friday's agenda was the Cardiff Super Special and Petter Solberg in his Subaru was fastest by half a second from Markko Martin with Carlos Sainz 3rd.  The stage was spectacular for the fans in that quite a few team mates were running in tandem, head to head.  Sainz was a fraction quicker than McRae, but in overall terms the stage will probably mean little in terms of the final result.  Marcus Gronholm was the man setting the pace through Friday, and with this morning's first stage, Resolven, being the longest in the rally all eyes will be on the finish times to see if the new World Champion can continue his dominance.

There were 74 cars listed as still running after stage 6 but just 73 after stage 7 from the original 85 starters. Martin Rowe was that 74th car on the list, but Martin lost a lot of time in stage 6 when his Puma went off the road over a crest and got stuck in a bog.  It transpires that throughout the day co driver Chris Wood had been losing his voice, and was having difficulty getting the notes out. A stage 6 retirement was the Puma of Francois Duval who had mechanical problems for most of the day. 

Swedish driver Oscar Svedlund continues to lead gpN from James Thompson with Tobias Johansson 3rd.  Nik Elsmore is 4th, Gavin Cox 5th and Jeremy Easson 6th, all in Lancers. Stig Blomqvist was shown as 7th in gpN, but Stig reported a miserable day with turbo/head gasket problems and felt that the car would not continue much longer.

In the Junior WRC category Tuohino leads from Dallavilla, both in Saxos. Niall McShea 3rd, Sola 4th and Gwyndaf Evans 5th in the MG. McShea tried an experiment with his dampers at one point but felt he was going the wrong way and reverted back to his original.  Gwyndaf Evans lost a little time in stage 6 when his MG developed a power steering problem. This happened on the way into Walters Arena in Rheola and the car filled with smoke, possibly the belt disintegrating. Natalie Barratt is the only lady driver in the rally and she is lying 45th overall.  Natalie related how she had not slept a wink on Thursday night worrying about the lake in Walters Arena,  and once she got that out of the way, she was quite happy!  A final point  - the first 15 cars in the classification run in reverse order today. More news later. BRIAN AND LIZ PATTERSON