What were they thinking? - Tommi Makinen’s lost world title
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- In 2001, Tommi Makinen was chasing what was at the time, a record 5th world rally title, battling with Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Carlos Sainz. However, in the final 4 rounds of the season, his Mitsubishi team made the decision to use their new WRC spec car, which would end up costing Tommi the title. In this video, I go through why it cost the title, as well the reasons why Mitsubishi did what they did.
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The main issue with the switch to the new car was that they had a deal with the FIA that they had to launch the car during the 2001 season, as they were already making modifications to their Group A Lancer that were technically not allowed with the Group A rules, so they gained special permission to apply these upgrades for 2001. Mitsubishi simply should have started development of their WRC car way earlier to be better prepared for the switch, as they only began development by mid-2000, which was way too late. The poor business running from Mitsubishi during that era surely didn't help with that.
Lancer should've been allowed for Group A Rules btw.
You have to remember that all the experience gained by Mitsubishi running Group A rules were applied to the production Lancer Evolution models. Just look at the Group N competition during the late 90s and early to mid 2000s, it was dominated by Mitsubishi. Marketing and sales wise, it was a huge success for MMC.
Another factor is that the 2001 Lancer Evo VI TME car they were running was almost close to a WRC spec than Group A, except for the rear suspension which is still using multi link instead of mcpherson. Tommi always complained about the lack of rear suspension travel but he was able to drive around the issue and the reliablity of the car helped him a lot.
Exactly, also the car than finally was homologated wasn't 100% the car than was under development, because they're aiming to Montecarlo 2002, but some things like diffs, turbo, ECU and brakes are directly transfered from the 6.5 Evo because they just run out of time, the Spec2 LanEvo WRC than finally debuted like a year after (Finland 2002 if I'm not mistaken), was in fact the car than was planned for 2002, with a few more changes
This was a much more rounded car, and in some stages showed promising times despite being heavily under developed
@@chacaf22Welp, the spec. 2 Lancer was still pretty much a failure just like the previous version. Although it was partly the drivers fault too
@@Chr.Monika6469 yeah, but in NZ, Finland & Germany 2003, there's some promising times
It's already been said, they had to move to the WRCar version of the Lancer in 2001, and not the Gp A Lancer VI thanks to a prior agreement with the FiA. The car wasn't ready, but they had no choice......
Had they delayed the development for at least 3 more months, it could've been a whole different outcome.
I think I heard that actualy Mitsubishi was forced by wrc to go to the wrc regs by the middle of the season (with San Remo rally being the deadline), because the lancer 6.5 (used for the first ten rounds) was getting too far away from the group A specs or something like that. It was just unfortunate that the new car was so underdeveloped thanks to Mitsubishi running super tight on budget (that was also why they were sticking to group A for so long). So I feel like Tommi's 2001 season was basicaly doomed (with Sweden being game changing especialy) as soon as he'll get the wrc spec Lancer. Mitsubishi made the right choice to postponing the wrc spec Lancer for as long as they could.
Exactly, also the car than finally was homologated wasn't 100% the car than was under development, because they're aiming to Montecarlo 2002, but some things like diffs, turbo, ECU and brakes are directly transfered from the 6.5 Evo because they just run out of time, the Spec2 LanEvo WRC than finally debuted like a year after (Finland 2002 if I'm not mistaken), was in fact the car than was planned for 2002, with a few more changes
This was a much more rounded car, and in some stages showed promising times in 2003, despite being heavily under developed
Tommi Makkinen had a horrendous record at Rally GB. He never won it, & he only got the 1997 title by scoring 1 point there, he crashed out early on day 1 in 1998.
About the 'homologation specials' not being required for a WRC car - that's not entirely true. IIRC, Peugeot had to make a special version of the 206 since the base model didn't meet the minimum length set by the FIA. The road going 206 was 3.83 m, which was below the 4.0 mark and thus the 206 Grand Tourisme, which had enlarged bumpers to meet the 4.0 m requirement, was born. Only 4000 cars were produced which basically made the 206 WRC being based on a homologation special.
2001 WRC Season has been a blast for sure.
Mitsubishi were flat out broke, and the poor management never helped. IMO they were lucky to have Makinen driving for them, because i doubt any other driver from that era would have won so many titles with that outdated EVO.
Also, Mitsubishi had some success with the the old EVO in 2001 because FIA gave them a special permission to modify their car a bit more, so they could be more competitive, with that in mind I would say that 2000 was the beginning of the downfall for Mitsubishi.
When it was reliable, it was still fast, he set his usual fast times on a lot of stages. They just didn’t have the testing to show that speed. Then when Makinen left, nobody else really talented ever drove it and Mitsubishi basically gave up development. The WRC05 was showing promise before they bailed again. In 2007 the upgraded version set amazing stage times, they just had no works support and poor drivers. I think the Lancer WRC, wasn’t as bad as the results made it look. In my opinion anyway
You could probably make a video about all of mcraes "lost" championships
Since he was like a few points short of being a 3 time champion
Excellent video, loved it!
Wasn't there a rumor that WRC regs had to be mandated and the FIA were closing down the modified group A cars
I won't lie, I cried when Colin crashed. Stupidly, I had a large bet on him winning (the championship). If it came off I wouldn't be working today. But as the saying goes;
"Back the loosing horse this is where you end up."
How large?
2001 was mad.
Very good work. Cheers from Canberra JW. (Yep, always 🦘 next 14km way down here lol.)
I was a big Colin fan because his CMR2 game, but my dad bought a red Mitsubishi Carisma because he was a Tommi fan and i started to focus more on him.
In my opinion, he made a silly mistake in sweden what cost him points to win. And with the new car at GB they did a lot of testing and reinforcement ow suspension and anyway snapped the wheel off.
I think even the evo6 was slower then the rest of group A cars but Tommi was so talented that he became one with it.
As soon as I saw the title I knew this was about the 2001 season and moving to the new Lancer.
2001 and 2002 seemed to break Tommi’s spirit. Just wasn’t the same man after that. By 2003 he had already checked out.
I'd quite like to see you to do a video roasting the notoriously unreliable Peugeot 307CC, a car that Marcus Gronholm was already fed up with at only the third round.
loving the content mate!
WRC in the early 00's 🔥🔥🔥
Ha, McRae was showing an amazing pace... he was touching the exit of every corner for just being 7 secs ahead of Burns after 3 stages. He likely was going to have a crash sooer lor later, or being defeated by Burns as the 3 years prior, as Burns was the reigning winner of the rally GB in 98, 99, and 2000.
best season ever
English pronunciation of Lancer is almost the same as Italian of Lancia. Got me confused couple of times.
If Tommi hadn't crashed in Sweden he would've won his 5th title in 2001 also
The turn of the millenium came in 2001, not 2000. Google it.
I think he potentially could've won 6 championships in a row had it not been for the problem in 2000 despite getting off to a great start and was in contention until the final round and in 2001. But who knows?maybe if he lost the 98 title but had the 2001 title, he still would've been a 4 time champion or maybe 3 if he lost it all
Great vid.
On an unrelated note, I can't help but wonder- do I consider those times in rally as 'the golden era' because it really was 'golden', or is it because I was 12?
it was golden.
Lots of manufacturers involved, a lot of top drivers driving.
Several different winners, not just one car that wins it all for 9 years straight.
Don’t know about golden, but it was a great era. Lots of manufacturers, and competitive field. Rallies still had some endurance part although already strongly reduced, and the cars looked great. Also tv-coverage it that era was finally centrally organized, and although I’m sure in Britain and Finland rally has always had a lot of tv coverage, for a kid in the Netherlands it was great that Eurosport finally started showing rally reports.
On the other hand, other will claim group b was the golden era, other will say group a because of the homologationspecials, other will say group 4.
For me WRC was great till about 2003, after that it went downhill quickly. But a lot depends indeed when you started watching I guess. The current cars are mighty expressive, but for me it isn’t rallying anymore, just cars driving through a forest very fast. And yes there is a difference, those who know know.
I bet if makinen would have made an ogier-like-forfuncomeback in 2005, the car would have had the potential to put pressure on loeb. Even the talented but unexperienced Galli was able to catch a rally lead. What was missingnwas Tommi
He looks like rubins barichello
Watch small documentary of Tommi Mäkinen on my channel if you want to know more about him. It’s older one and in Finnish but I added English subtitles.
LETS GOOO
"Rally of Great Britain, even though the entire Rally was based in Wales" ..... the last I checked Wales was part of Great Britain
That's not what I meant. The Rally of Great Britain usually took place across the entirety of the UK, not just Wales. But from 2001 they were primarily in Wales, despite the name still being called the Rally of Great Britain. It was only until 2003 I believe they eventually changed it to Wales Rally GB.
Tommi lost the title all by himself.
He took unnecessary risks and crashed out many times.
One crash injured his co driver and there was no need for him to push that hard.
Had he just had the mindset of Juha Kankkunen, he would be a 5 time wdc.
Which is why juha is one of the greatest rally drivers, he knew when to just secure points and bring the car home in one peace and not risk it.
Hence he is a 4 time WDC during a time when most drivers were just 1 or 2 time WDC.
Grönholm is another example of this, he kept pushing hard when all he needed was a few points to win the title.
Instead he crashed out and lost the title, he could easily been a 4 time WDC had he known when to take it easy.
which is something that still upsets him the Australian crash, he just needed to finish in the top 5 to win the title, but on stage one of the rally he crashed out because he wanted to win the rally.
I disagree. Tommi was in a slower car, so obviously he would have to push harder in order to set competitive times. Not only that but during the final rallies he lost the championship lead, so he would need to score some big points.
Nice video but a few incorrect facts. Ie
Calling a group A car a group B car.
At 10:31 you say "Tommi would clip the inside hole." I am calling innuendo filth.
mate, it think you can talk louder....