The 12th round out of 14 in the 2000
FIA Rally Championship takes place at San Remo, Italy, with just five points separating the top four drivers at the top of the championship standings.
The event will be the last asphalt rally of the season with the stages run in the hills behind the coastal resort town of Ligurian. The route being the most compact ever run in the World Rally Championship and also the first (for over 20 years) to make substantial use of the same stage roads in both directions. This has been done to allow the large number of spectators to see the cars run up to four times without the need to move between stages.
The last round at Corsica saw
Colin McRae have a lucky escape when he crashed out of the event after plummeting 30 feet off a hillside on the ninth stage of the event. The Ford Focus driver suffered a fractured left cheekbone and a bruised lung, however despite having to undergo an operation on his badly swollen face he will take part in this weekends event, being just four points behind championship leader Marcus Gronholm he could not afford to miss any of the remaining three Rallies.
McRae said, “After the operation I was always confident I'd be OK to compete but had to wait for approval from the surgeon. Now that's happened, I'm delighted. I want to put the accident behind me and concentrate on winning the title. We didn't lose much ground in Corsica and I'm going to Italy with just one thing in mind and that's to win the rally.”
