Mitsubishi Announces 2004 WRC Driver line-up and new Lancer

[altezza]

Mitsubishi Motors Motor Sports (MMSP) Announces 2004 WRC Driver Line-Up

Panizzi to participate in all 16 WRC rounds;
Sohlberg, Galli and Sola to share second Mitsubishi Lancer Rally Car


Trebur, November 2003 – Mitsubishi Motors Motor Sports (MMSP) announced its team line-up for the 2004 FIA World Rally Championship today (Friday). The 16-round series gets underway in Monte Carlo on January 23-25th, 2004.

Frenchman Gilles Panizzi, co-driven by brother Herve, will drive the first Mitsubishi Lancer WRC on all 16 events in the championship. The other three drivers - Finland's Kristian Sohlberg, Spain's Daniel Sola Vila and Italy's Gianluigi 'Gigi' Galli - will share the second Mitsubishi Lancer WRC throughout the season and will drive a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 8 in other WRC rounds to gain further worldwide rally experience.

Panizzi, 38, will renew a successful working relationship with MMSP's Technical Director Mario Fornaris, with whom he worked before. Panizzi currently lies tenth in this year's FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers', despite only being entered in ten of the 15 rallies to date. He began rallying in 1988 and has taken seven WRC wins in 53 events.

"I am delighted to be working with Gilles and Herve again next year," said Fornaris. "Gilles has shown time and again a competitive spirit and a determination to succeed. He is a very talented driver and his impressive victory in Spain recently is proof of his ability. It is a challenge for both of us. We both have an excellent working relationship and Gilles has a special way of feeding information about a car to engineers. We are both looking forward to working together again and pushing forward with this new and exciting opportunity."

Finnish driver Kristian Sohlberg, who began rallying in 1997, represented Mitsubishi Motors in this year's Rally Deutschland and finished 14th overall. The 25-year-old teams up with fellow Finn, Kaj Lindstrí¹¶í¼*former co-driver of four-times World Rally Champion Tommi Mä«©nen who retires at the end of this season.

The Italian, Galli, will be co-driven by Guido D'Amore. Thirty-year-old Galli began rallying in 1994 and won the 2000 Italian Rally Championship Cup for Drivers of Group N cars. He attempted the FIA Cup for Drivers of Production Cars on four occasions and finished sixth overall in 1998. His WRC partnership with D'Amore began in the 1998 Sanremo Rally.

SpainÂ’s Sola joins forces with Alex Romani Balcells. The Spannish pair first competed together in the 2002 Rallye Catalunya-Costa Brava and have tackled select rounds of the WRC for two years. Sola, 28, lies fifth in the 2003 FIA Cup for Drivers of Production Cars and took a Production victory this season in the Rally Deutschland and second place in Argentina. Daniel SolaÂ’s WRC career began in the 1997 Rallye Catalunya-Costa Brava and in 2002 he won the FIA Junior World Rally Championship for Drivers.

"I am delighted to welcome Gilles and our young drivers to the new WRC team," said Sven Quandt, Head of Motor Sports, MMSP GmbH. "The ‘youngsters’ will share our second car. Our philosophy is to promote young drivers for the future and our main focus is to develop drivers from the Group N category to compete at the highest WRC level. Galli, Sola and Sohlberg are all talented young men with great potential."

[TT]

And BTW, the first pics of the new Lancer are around pretty aggressive.. I hope it will come back to the top asap to see a good battle next season!

[altezza]

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p.s. links fixed

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p.s. these are old links

[altezza]

Originally Posted by TT And BTW, the first pics of the new Lancer are around pretty aggressive.. I hope it will come back to the top asap to see a good battle next season!

yeah, i was resizing and uploading the pics

next season's battle should be quite exciting 8)

[geekdiggy]

that's the dumbest looking rear end i've ever seen. i have no idea why they'd put the wing so far forward

if you notice, from most angles it looks like a repainted hyundai accent WRC. and i have a feeling it will have the same effect that the hyundai did: NONE. just look at their line up. they have a very strong chance on tarmac but gilles is no where near the top on gravel and their second car is shared by guys who have no experience at all. i'm not expecting anything great out of the mitsubishi team the next couple of seasons

[TT]

LOL, they say there are 6000, yes, 6000 changes under the skin... and as stated by wrc.com: "which does not feature an active centre differential. It will instead use an epicyclic differential, making it possibly the most conservative WRC car since the category's inception in 1997. In addition, the car will use a manual gearchange and MacPherson suspension all round."

Manual gearchange?!?

[scubywrxr]

I hope Subaru kick their asses again :fist: 0X

[oscargarza88]

i was expecting aALOT more out of this car, im pretty sure subru will beat it, as always...

[noosee]

WOW Agressive !!!
Will EVO 9 look something simular ?
Strange place for rear spoiler.

[Ziploc]

the new ugliest WRC car

got its awful...

[course]

I agree with geekdiggy, this car looks like the Accent. I like Mitsu and I hope that they'll do well next season with that car. Oh and BTW, does anyone know why the car sponsored by Hot Wheels... aren't they making toys, and toys only?

[Schwalbe]

Come on Mitsubishi, return to the source like the old EVO 5 and 6 styling !

[megabit]

Originally Posted by altezza Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4

beautiful

[vsusan]

LOve the front ...but the back looks like ass. Subaru's look much better.

[crispy]

I think i just lost my lunch.