The 34th Propecia Rally New Zealand takes place this coming weekend - the fourth round out of sixteen in the 2004
FIA World Rally Championship.
NZ will also play host to the third round in the 2004 FIA Production Car WRC.
Rally teams will have travelled cross the globe this week in preparation for this event.
Starting tomorrow [Thursday 15 April] competitors will complete two sprints around the Super Special stage at Manukau, the three day event will see the world's top rally drivers battle it out on some of the best gravel stages in the series.
Billed as a drivers' rally the event's smooth and flowing roads that run through luscious green countryside place few mechanical pressures on cars, instead the emphasis is on driver performance, flat out speed and nerves of steel.
Special notes:
Previously run on stages in both the North and South Islands, Rally New Zealand now follows a more compact route based around Auckland in the North Island.
Maintaining its April slot at the beginning of the New Zealand autumn, the 2004 event will see a return to stages south west of Auckland, including the famous 29km Whangaa Coast stage, arguably one of the most scenic stretches of road in the Championship.
Also of particular interest this year are changes to the pre-event reconnaissance system. For the first time in the history of the WRC the familiar two-day two-pass recce will be replaced by another format known as
Mille Pistes. The new system splits the recce, so that stages are driven once on Wednesday and Thursday, and for a second time on the mornings of each Leg before being tackled competitively in the afternoon. Rally New Zealand will be the
only WRC rally in 2004 to adopt this format.
FIA World Rally Championship news:
Sebastien Loeb and
Markko Martin jointly lead the World Rally drivers' championship following the opening three events, both having scored 20 points. Ford meanwhile head the constructors' – ten points ahead of
Citroen.
News from the Manufacturers' teams:
555 Subaru World Rally Team:
[
Petter Solberg, car #1 and
Mikko Hirvonen, car #2.]
Subaru debuted their new Impreza 2004WRC last time out in Mexico, and despite, the fact Petter Solberg lost five minutes and 40 seconds at the end of leg 1 - due to a penalty - he managed to fight back to take fourth, winning nine of the 15 special stages. Such performance bodes well for NZ.
"We were pleased with the debut of the car in Mexico and its performance and reliability were all we had hoped for - it could so easily have been a winning debut," noted team boss, David Lapworth, "The specification of the Subaru Impreza WRC2004 for New Zealand will be very similar to that of the Mexico cars and having completed the North American event, we go to New Zealand with far less questions."
