Preview: Rally Catalunya - Costa Brava.

Leading into the fourth round of the 2002 FIA World Rally Championship Marcus Gronholm heads the drivers championship with 18 points, while Corsica winner Gilles Panizzi is in second place with 10points. 2001 Championship winner Richard Burns is currently in fifth position, playing second fiddle to his Peugeot team-mates.

The Rally Catalunya-Costa Brava is run on classic mountain roads in the hinterland of Costa Brava and Costa Dorada in north-east Spain. It will be the second successive and the third out of five all-asphalt rallies this season. It is also the second of five occasions this year with only a fortnight between successive events. For the second rally running, the 2001 winner has not entered the 2002 event. Apart from the Safari Rally in Africa, the Catalunya Rally has the longest distance of any world championship rally: a sharp contrast to the Tour de Corse, the shortest event. 75 entries have been received.

Team Peugeot Total, Championship leader after Corsica with 36 points, will be entering all three drivers for this rally; Burns, Gronholm and Panizzi. Although the actual cars to be used are different ones, Peugeot's line-up for drivers and car specifications mirror those at Corsica. The cars to be seen in Catalunya are again those which had previously been used last year. Gronholm remains the only team driver not to use the hydraulically controlled anti roll bar system. Panizzi carried out final tyre confirmation testing in Central France the week before the event.

Ford, who are second in the championship, will definitely be entering Carlos Sainz and Markko Martin, whilst Colin McRae hopes to start the rally despite suffering a broken left finger in Corsica: ''I use the right hand for changing gear so there is no problem!'' Sainz and McRae have new cars, featuring revised roll cages and specially lowered seating position for McRae's co-driver.

Subaru will only be entering two cars in this rally: Makinen's regular co-driver Risto Mannisenmaki had his official seat fitting session after Corsica but will not compete either in Catalunya or in Cyprus. His introduction to high speed Subaru action will be at a gravel rally test in April. Reserve co-driver Kaj Lindstrom will take part on the next two events. Meanwhile the team has had to reprepare Makinen's Monte Carlo car (upgraded to 2002 specification) at short notice to replace the car Makinen crashed in Corsica this year. Solberg is to run his Corsica car.

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart have just two entries: Delecour and McRae. This is the home ground for Ralliart's Spanish rally engineer Roger Estrada. ''I always dreamed of working with the big rally teams. My family's home is a house situated at the start of a stage used by the Catalunya Rally. Unfortunately when I joined the rally world professionally, they stopped using that stage on the event!'' The team have given Marlboro Yamaha rider Carlos Checa the chance to sample four-wheel drive performance during the Shakedown. Same cars as in Corsica.

Hyundai are using all three Corsica cars again in Catalunya. Chief Engineer Nick Clipson: ''We were delighted with the reliability of the new items on the car in Corsica, although we are still not exactly sure why Kuchar had his throttle problem.'' The only other serious problem had been failure of Schwarz' revised power steering system on the final stage, the cause of which is being currently analysed.

Skoda who have not scored yet will be entering Eriksson, Gardemeister, and Blomqvist. The teams biggest recent crisis has been to try to salvage FIA Group N champion Gabriel Pozzo's semi-official Octavia World Rally Championship programme after the withdrawal of commercial support from Argentina. The Skoda factory has offered enough help to allow the Argentine driver to start this event, and urgent enquiries are being made in the hope some of the other planned events can still be entered.

Following experience gained by Bugalski last week at the Tour de Corse, Citreon's three official entries will all be 2002 version cars. Puras will drive a 2001 model entered by Citroen. The 2002 evolution car was homologated just in time for Corsica and features changes to the exhaust, intercooler and turbo, air intake systems and a new lightweight flywheel.

In the Junior World Rally Championship, new technical pieces have been homologated for the Ford Pumas and Peugeot 206s. Changes to the Puma: bigger front brakes with monobloc calipers, closer ratio gears and changes to the inlet manifold. A new system of a separate belt drive for power steering and water pump is to follow. Francois Duval's works development car will be fitted with all these pieces. Peugeot have new suspension pieces but no decision will be taken whether to use them until after last minute testing. Spanish driver Marc Blazquez has withdrawn from the series on account of financial reasons. Following the Citroen Saxo clutch problems in Monte Carlo, revised pieces have been tested in Belgium, Russia and Italy in a variety of conditions without renewed failures.

There will be four Peugeot factory approved entries driven by Harri Rovanpera (car no. 23, entered by Bozian Racing), Bruno Thiry (car no. 24, run by Kronos team), Achim Mortl (car no. 26, HF Grifone) and Miguel Campos (car no 27, Peugeot Portugal). Jesus Puras will drive a Citroen 2001 model entered by the Spanish Citroen Sport team. Hamed Al Wahaibi has withdrawn his World Rally Car entry. The Ford Galp entry for former FIA Group N Champion Rui Madeira was cancelled following accidents on the first two national championship rallies in Portugal.

FIA Production Car World Championship contender Natalie Barratt has acquired a Hyundai Accent World Rally Car, for a back-up three-event programme this year, starting here. Expect special celebrations from Spanish enthusiasts when Carlos Sainz starts his 155th world championship rally, making him the most experienced championship driver in history. Juha Kankkunen started his 154th event in Sweden, but did not participate in Corsica, and will not contest Catalunya either.

Details of the route:

The 'Catalunya Rally' has become the most significant tarmac event in the world rally championship for corner cutting on the special stages. The obvious aim of drivers is to straighten their lines through the corners, even when it means leaving the security of the asphalt and heading across country on the dirt. This has become an art form for drivers but it is full of hazards for the engineers. Technical Director at M-Sport, Christian Loriaux, explains what is involved. ''Corner cutting takes place on virtually every event to a greater or lesser extent but in Spain it is far more acute. Because every driver cuts corners the surface of the track is going to be covered with dirt and stones, so often a driver has a cleaner line off the asphalt and is consequently forced into cutting corners. The problem then becomes worse because every stage is used twice. The situation is worst on the stages in the south because here the road surfaces tend to sit proud of the bare earth beside the road. This means that wheels are damaged when the drivers regain the road at the end of a corner. Every team suffers a lot of broken wheels on this event. Unfortunately we cannot prepare special stronger wheels because these would be heavier and upset the handling.''

The FIA World Council meeting on 20th March discussed new spectator safety measures for rallying. New rules are expected to operate in Catalunya regarding how to allocate special stage times to drivers if a stage is stopped before all the cars have passed.