Rally Australia was held on November 10-13, based in Perth. It was the final round of the WRC.
World Rally Championship Round 16
Sébastien Loeb had well and truly won the WRC this year before the crews came to Australia for the final round. In fact he had won ten out of the fifteen rounds. The runner-up spot was tied between Petter Solberg and Marcus Grönholm, and would stay that way with both failing to finish in Australia, with Solberg taking the place due to more wins.
The event attracted a field of 60 cars with 12 Group A cars. Citroën brought Loeb, supported by François Duval. Peugeot had Grönholm, supported by Daniel Carlsson. Ford had Toni Gardemeister and Roman Kresta. Mitsubishi were back with Rovanperä and Galli, while Škoda were also back with Armin Schwarz and a retiring Colin McRae. But the most exciting prospect was Australian, Chris Atkinson, supporting Petter Solberg in the Subaru World Rally Team, and with a realistic prospect of victory.
On the first stage on the Friday (SS3) Carlsson rolled and was out, the car being destroyed by fire. By SS4 Atkinson was leading by 11 seconds from Solberg with Grönholm and Loeb close behind. On SS6 Atkinson damaged the steering and dropped to sixth, slowing more on SS7 and dropping to thirteenth. Grönholm had collapsed suspension on SS7 and retired on the next stage. Loeb has taken the lead but crashed out on SS9. So at the end of an exciting first day, Solberg lead Duval by 46 seconds, with McRae in the Škoda up to third, just ahead of Rovanperä.
On the third of five Bunnings stages on the Saturday, Solberg retired with engine issues handing Duval the prospect of his first ever WRC victory. By day end McRae had closed to within 27 seconds of Duval with Rovanperä just 5 seconds further back. Atkinson had climbed back to sixth.
Rovanperä overtook McRae on the first three stages of the final day but McRae’s Škoda needed a clutch change, and there wasn’t enough time and they were forced to retire. Duval extended his lead to take the victory from Rovanperä and Manfred Stohl in a non-works Citroën. Atkinson overtook Galli to claim fourth. The next best Australian was Sam Brand in another Subaru in fourteenth.
