TALLINN - Estonian rally driver Markko Martin delivered his weakest performance this season by finishing fifth in the latest WRC rally in New Zealand held April 8 to 10. Sebastien Loeb of Citroen won the race - the second victory for him this season.
Martin, who is on the Peugeot team, fell back one place in the WRC Drivers' Standings after the New Zealand rally. The champion driver is now third with 23 points, just three points behind the leader Petter Solberg. Loeb is second with 25 points.
However, things look bright for Peugeot. Martin's teammate, Marcus Gronholm from Finland, took another podium finish this season by coming in second. Solberg from the Subaru team and Francois Duval from the Citroen team were third and fourth respectively.
With 43 points, Peugeot holds a decent 12-point gap between itself and the Team Standings runner-up Citroen. Yet Subaru, Ford and Mitsubishi are not that far behind, with 28, 26 and 24 points respectively. Skoda is lagging behind with four points.
"I haven't got used to the Peugeot yet," Martin told the Eesti Paevaleht daily, adding that the brakes on his 307 demand an approach different from the Ford Focus he used to ride for several years while on the Ford team.
During the rally, Martin, who earlier admitted New Zealand was one of his favorite vacation getaways, also complained about difficulty in choosing the right tires for the tracks.
Martin's colleague, Gronholm, called the New Zealand rally "a tire circus," referring to his dissatisfaction with the Pirelli tires the team began to use for the first time this season.
The next rally will be held on the Italian island of Sardinia from April 29 to May 1.
