Makinen celebrates championship lead

Finland's Tommi Makinen, driving a Mitsubishi, won the Rally of Portugal, the third round of the World Rally Championship yesterday.

He finished ahead of Spain's Carlos Sainz in a Ford Focus and now leads in the world championship. The four-times world champion had to fight all the way however after Sainz had made up a 13 seconds overnight deficit and took the lead by just a fraction of a second going into the 11.5km final special stage.

"I chose tyres best suited for the final stage, but they were not the best for the one which preceded it," said Makinen.

His tactics worked and he edged eight seconds ahead of Sainz, with reigning world champion Marcus Gronholm of Finland driving his Peugeot into third place. Next came Britain's Richard Burns in a Subaru Impreza followed by Fracnois Delecour of France (Ford Focus) and Alistair McRae of Britain (Hyundai Accent).

Makinen's triumph, his second in Portugal after 1997 and his 22nd overall, was all the more impressive given the terrible conditions. Fog, heavy rain and mud forced organisers to cancel four of the 22 scheduled specials.

Makinen's win lifted him to the top of the world championship standings with a fourpoints lead over Sainz. Gronholm is further back having scored just four points in the three rallies to date

"It's just an incredible feeling," he said of his triumph. "It was such a difficult weekend and it is something special to have won again in my 100th rally."

Sainz said it had been the toughest rally he had ever competed in. "On the final stage, Tommi's car was throwing up large stones and I had to take action to avoid them."

Mitsubishi have carved out a handy lead in the constructors championship with 33 points to Ford's 20. Reigning champions Peugeot have just Gronholm's four points to show for their efforts.

The Rally of Portugal followed those of Monte Carlo and Sweden. The next leg is the Rally of Catalonia from March 22nd-25th.