THE 30th Cyprus Rally, fifth round of the 2002 World Rally Championship, was officially launched at a news conference in Nicosia yesterday.
All the world’s top drivers will be competing in the 1,300 km race, with the current runaway leader in the Manufacturers’ championship, Peugeot, fielding the first three cars off the ramp: Marcus Gronholm of Finland is seeded number 1, with Peugeot’s tarmac ace Gilles Panizzi at number 2. Their team-mate, reigning World Champion Richard Burns of Britain, starts third, followed by the Subaru Impreza of four times world champion Tommi Makinen, and Ford’s Carlos Sainz, who won here in 2000.
Harri Rovanpera, Colin McRae and Petter Solberg will start sixth, seventh and eighth, with the Mitsubishis of Alister McRae and Francois Delecour rounding off the top ten.
The rally proper will start at 8 am on Friday April 19, and is divided into three legs, with six competitive stages on the first day, eight on the second and another six on the third, covering a total of 324 kilometres.
The organisers are placing great emphasis on safety, and have this year introduced a new system which uses green and red tape to mark ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ areas. Chief Safety Officer Loucas Loucaides was blunt: “if the official in the FIA safety helicopter sees people standing in the no-go areas, the special stage will be cancelled,” he said, and called on all fans to respect marshals’ instructions and make sure Cyprus didn’t, like the recent Catalunya Rally, end up with several stages not being run. Apart from disappointed fans, a lack of discipline among spectators could threaten the World Championship status of the event, he said.
This year’s rally will be run from April 18, when there will be ceremonial start on the Limassol seafront at 6pm, until April 21, when the first car is due back at the finish — again at Limassol promenade — at 4.30 pm.
(There will be a special Rally edition of Motor Mail in the Sunday Mail on April 14th)
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
