MITSUBISHI DRIVER MAKINEN EXTENDS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
LEAD ON ACROPOLIS RALLY AS TRELLES TAKES GROUP N WIN

Team Mitsubishi Ralliart driver Tommi Makinen has increased his World Rally Championship with a fine third place on the Acropolis Rally in his Mitsubishi Lancer. Three Mitsubishis finished in the top six places on one of the hardest and roughest rallies in the World Championship, Richard Burns taking fourth in his Carisma GT, while Uwe Nittel of Germany was sixth in his Lancer. Mitsubishi enjoyed further success in the Group N production category, as Gustavo Trelles of Uruguay scored another crushing triumph in his Mitsubishi Lancer. Competitors faced intense heat on the third and final day of the rally, fought out in the sun-drenched mountains of central Greece. Some of the stages were so rough that the drivers compared them to Africa and adopted similar tactics, swerving round the largest of the thousands of rock littering the tracks. Spectators thronged the route for a glimpse of the world's top rally drivers, cheering and clapping as they stormed precipitous mountain roads and threaded their way through tiny villages.