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Stage win for Burns
Tour de Corse : SS9 - 30.11km
Richard Burns
he final of the three continuous stages is the 30.11km long Lopgna – Sarrola
stage. The stage is narrow and twisty on relatively smooth tarmac up to Sarri
d'Orcino. The stage finishes with a fast descent to Sarrola. What makes this
stage rather tricky is that the drivers are using the same tyres that they used
for the past two stages, which means by now the rubber is getting rather worn.
However Richard Burns made the best of his Michelins posting the fastest time
of the stage with an 18:11.6. This marks the Peugeot drivers first stage
victory of the 46th Tour de Corse and moves his back into third place overall
as Tommi Makinen was over 12 seconds slower through the stage.
Second best time belonged to Burn's teammate and rally leader Gilles Panizzi,
who finished 3.8 seconds behind. Panizzi did however extend his lead over
second placed man Marcus Gronholm by a further eight seconds as the Finn could
only manage the sixth best time of the stage.
Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae were third and fourth quickest for Ford, but
neither improved on their positions. However having posted the fifth best time
Philippe Bugalski was able to move into sixth place overall relegating Subaru's
Petter Solberg to seventh.
It was a much better stage for the two Mitsubishi drivers as Francois Delecour
was eighth quickest and Alister McRae ninth. But while Delecour remains in
tenth place McRae was able to move up one place to 12th overall. Hyundai's
Armin Schwarz rounded off the top ten.
SOURCE : F1-LIVE.COM
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