1985 World Rally Championship season
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The 1985 World Rally Championship season was the 13th season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). The season consisted of 12 rallies following the same schedule as the previous season.
Peugeot Talbot Sport, having made a successful late-season entry to the Group B with their new Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 car, returned in 1985 for a full season with the car. Ari Vatanen, who had won three of the last four rallies of 1984 in the car, also returned with the team and in the first rally of the season, passed Walter Röhrl's Quattro in the snowy and icy terrain after incurring an eight-minute penalty caused by co-driver Terry Harryman's error. At the Swedish Rally, Vatanen won again, establishing himself as the early favorite for a driver's title, as well as putting Peugeot ahead of Audi.
A disaster struck in May at the Tour de Corse. On the 4th stage of the rally, Italian driver Attilio Bettega crashed his Lancia 037 into a tree and got killed instantly. His co-driver Maurizio Perissinot survived the crash uninjured. The crash raised questions about the safety aspects of Group B cars. Ironically, exactly one year later at the same event Henri Toivonen suffered a similar fatal accident forcing FIA to ban Group B.
Unfortunately, Vatanen had a major accident in Argentina while speeding down a long, straight road in top gear when his car crashed and rolled end-over-front. The flimsy exterior of the car shattered, but the strong rollcage absorbed most of the impact. The drivers were airlifted to hospital by Peugeot's helicopter, and Vatanen's injuries were severe and seemed life-threatening. Although he would recover and return to the sport, the Peugeot team was forced to turn to its other driver, Timo Salonen. Salonen had already taken the points lead and finished with the driver's championship on the strength of five rally wins.
Audi Sport faced the dual pressure of Peugeot's strong 205 car in competition, and waning company commitment to the Quattro rally program. With the danger of Group B rally becoming a more publicized issue, the company was questioning its involvement in the sport unless major changes were made to improve safety. While both Stig Blomqvist and Walter Röhrl were retained as drivers, they suffered generally at the hands of the Peugeot team although they would ultimately place second and third respectively. Their season however only included a single rally win between them, with Röhrl's triumph at Sanremo proving to be Audi's last Group B victory in the World Rally Championship.
The Lancia Martini team's season was an even greater disappointment than Audi's. The rear-wheel drive Lancia Sport 037 met with little success, even in the hands of such drivers as Markku Alén, Massimo Biasion, and Henri Toivonen. Toivonen would suffer an accident, breaking three vertebrae in his neck early on and missing most of the season[1]. The team awaited the arrival of the Delta S4, a four-wheel-drive car, hoping it would give them a competitive advantage. Arriving for the final rally of the season, the RAC Rally, it succeeded in collecting the victory and giving the team hope for competing in the following season.
Austin Rallying made its entrance to the rally scene with the new MG Metro 6R4 and its 3.0L V6 engine, taking a podium position at the RAC. Austin's success would be brief however, as the Metro would struggle in the final season of Group B competition in 1986.
As with previous seasons, while all 12 events were calculated for tallying the drivers' scores, only 10 of the events applied to the championship for manufacturers. The two events in 1984 which applied only to driver standings were Sweden and the Rallye Côte d'Ivoire.
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[edit] Events
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| Black = Tarmac | Brown = Gravel | Blue = Snow/Ice | Red = Mixed Surface |
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| Round | Rally name | Stages | Podium finishers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Driver | Co-driver | Car | Time | |||
| 1 |  53ème Rallye Automobile de Monte Carlo (January 26-February 1) |
34 stages 852 km Tarmac |
1 |  Ari Vatanen |
 Terry Harryman |
Peugeot 205 T16 | 10:20:49 |
| 2 |  Walter Röhrl |
Christian Geistdörfer |
Audi Sport Quattro | 10:26:06 | |||
| 3 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 | 10:30:54 | |||
| 2 |  35th International Swedish Rally ( February 15-17) |
29 stages 505 km Snow/Ice |
1 | Ari Vatanen |
Terry Harryman |
Peugeot 205 T16 | 4:38:49 |
| 2 | Stig Blomqvist |
Björn Cederberg |
Audi Sport Quattro | 4:40:38 | |||
| 3 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 | 4:42:15 | |||
| 3 |  15º Rallye de Portugal Vinho do Porto (March 6-9) |
47 stages 733 km Gravel/Tarmac |
1 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 | 8:07.25 |
| 2 |  Miki Biasion |
Tiziano Siviero |
Lancia 037 | 8:12:12 | |||
| 3 | Walter Röhrl |
Christian Geistdörfer |
Audi Sport Quattro | 8:13:23 | |||
| 4 |  33rd Marlboro Safari Rally (April 4 -8) |
88 controls 5167.6 km Gravel |
1 | Juha Kankkunen |
Fred Gallagher |
Toyota Celica TCT | +5:18 pen |
| 2 | Björn Waldegård |
Hans Thorszelius |
Toyota Celica TCT | +5:52 pen | |||
| 3 | Mike Kirkland |
Anton Levitan |
Nissan 240RS | +6:01 pen | |||
| 5 |  29ème Tour De Corse - Rallye de France |
29 stages 1078 km Tarmac |
1 | Jean Ragnotti |
Pierre Thimonier |
Renault 5 Maxi Turbo | 12:54:15 |
| 2 | Bruno Saby |
Jean-François Fauchille |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 13:06:47 | |||
| 3 | Bernard Béguin |
Jean-Jacques Lenne |
Porsche 911 SC RS | 13:20:04 | |||
| 6 |  32nd Acropolis Rally |
47 stages 807.8 km Gravel |
1 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 10:20:19 |
| 2 | Stig Blomqvist |
Björn Cederberg |
Audi Sport Quattro | 10:24:34 | |||
| 3 | Ingvar Carlsson |
Benny Melander |
Mazda RX-7 | 11:08:25 | |||
| 7 |  15th AWA Clarion Rally of New Zealand (July 29-June 2) |
46 stages 894 km Gravel |
1 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 8:29:16 |
| 2 | Ari Vatanen |
Terry Harryman |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 8:30:33 | |||
| 3 | Walter Röhrl |
Christian Geistdörfer |
Audi Sport Quattro | 8:31:42 | |||
| 8 |  5º Marlboro Rally Argentina (July 31-August 3) |
23 stages 959 km Gravel |
1 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 10:04:33 |
| 2 |  Wilfred Wiedner |
Franz Zehetner |
Audi Quattro A2 | 10:18:29 | |||
| 3 | Carlos Reutemann |
Jean-François Fauchille |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 10:35:47 | |||
| 9 | 35th 1000 Lakes Rally |
50 stages 479 km Gravel |
1 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 4:10:35 |
| 2 | Stig Blomqvist |
Björn Cederberg |
Audi Sport Quattro S1 | 4:11:23 | |||
| 3 | Markku Alén |
Ilkka Kivimäki |
Lancia 037 | 4:14:14 | |||
| 10 | 27º Rallye Sanremo |
45 stages 650 km Gravel/Tarmac |
1 | Walter Röhrl |
Christian Geistdörfer |
Audi Sport Quattro S1 | 7:10:10 |
| 2 | Timo Salonen |
Seppo Harjanne |
Peugeot 205 T16 E2 | 7:16:39 | |||
| 3 | Henri Toivonen |
Juha Piironen |
Lancia Rallye 037 | 7:18:02 | |||
| 11 |  17ème Rallye Côte d'Ivoire[2] |
63 controls 4187 km Gravel |
1 | Juha Kankkunen |
Fred Gallagher |
Toyota Celica TCT | +4:46 pen |
| 2 | Björn Waldegård |
Hans Thorszelius |
Toyota Celica TCT | +4:46 pen | |||
| 3 | Alain Ambrosino |
Daniel Le Saux |
Nissan 240RS | +6:19 pen | |||
| 12 | 34th Lombard RAC Rally |
63 stages 880 km Gravel/Tarmac |
1 | Henri Toivonen |
Neil Wilson |
Lancia Delta S4 | 9:32.05 |
| 2 | Markku Alén |
Ilkka Kivimäki |
Lancia Delta S4 | 9:33.01 | |||
| 3 | Tony Pond |
Rob Arthur |
MG Metro 6R4 | 9:34.32 | |||
[edit] References
- ^ Maruszewska, Witolda. Henri Toivonen biography. Post 14. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
- ^ Event not included in the Manufacturers' Championship
[edit] External links
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