The rally year 1982 with Audi Quattro.
A difficult start of the season.
The 1982 rally season started traditionally again with the Monte Carlo Rally. This time no snow, little ice and lots of sun. The Audi team entered three cars: Hannu Mikkola/Arne Hertz, Michèle Mouton/Fabrizia Pons and Michele Cinotto/Emilio Radaelli. Both Mouton and Cinotto went no further than the twelfth special stage. Michèle was surprised by a patch of ice on the road and crashed the Audi into a stone wall with such force that Fabrizia suffered a concussion. They had to end the rally; they occupied fourth place. Two stages earlier, Cinotto got off the track due a flat tyre. Audi still had one car left, but Mikkola had already lost a lot of time in the third stage. In a fast corner he had no rear grip and spun the car. Quite a bit of damage. But giving up was not an option. He would go on and won ten chrono stages, was second on eight occasions and three times third. He showed that the Quattro was a formidable rally machine. A deserved second place, almost four minutes behind winner Walter Röhrl in an Opel Ascona 400 and ten minutes ahead of Jean-Luc Therier in the Porsche 911.
For the Swedish rally, the third Audi was for veteran Stig Blomqvist. With sponsor money from Sanyo, the blue and yellow coloured Quattro stood next to the other factory cars. Things went wrong for Blomqvist at the start. Due to an error in the electronics software, the motor did not start immediately. The Swede eventually succeeded, but after the first chrono stage he was running in 113th place. He then embarked on a mission impossible. And it worked! In the second day of the rally he was already in second place behind the factory Audi of Mikkola. Against someone like Hannu there was no chance to win the rally, and what's more, to win a rally with a private entry. It was also specifically agreed in advance that he was not allowed to race against his teammate, who needed points for the world championship. This meant another tricky situation as Michele Mouton was quickly moving up to third position by the end of the second day. Anyway, Audis were 1, 2, 3 before the final day started.
Then came Stage 21, the longest stage of the rally, followed by only four short stages with a total of 90 kilometres. Hannu Mikkola slipped and crashed into a pile of snow and landed in the ditch. The two pilots got the car back on track with the help of the spectators when Michèle approached. She crashed into the Audi and pushed it back into the ditch! While Mouton only fell to fifth place, Mikkola fell outside the top ten rankings and therefore finished scoreless. Despite this loss for Audi, their fastest driver during the rally in the person of Blomqvist scored the win.
Two times a winner !
Wednesday March 3, Estoril. Start of the Rally of Portugal. The first chrono stages were on asphalt roads. Henri Toivonen (Opel Ascona) won the first seven stages, but then had to deal with a flat tyre. That gave the lead to Hannu Mikkola. On Thursday morning in the darkness he was again the fastest, but in the second stage of the day he was surprised by dense fog and he missed a curve. And who took the lead: Michèle Mouton. In her black BP overalls with yellow stripes, she was unstoppable. In the rest of the timed stages she was always in the top four; she won a total of 18 stages. Her strong endurance and driving skills, combined with Audi technology, contributed to Mouton's second Audi victory and a 13-minute lead over Per Eklund in a Toyota Celica. Franz Wittmann in the private Audi was third. Audi was in the lead in the world championship standings and among the drivers, Mouton was second, four points behind Walter Röhrl.
Because the Safari Rally around Nairobi is not on the Audi team's programme, Team Audi was back in action in May on the island of Corsica. The rally cars were made lighter again. The engine now had an aluminium cylinder block. This had already been secretly placed in the Audi 100 of regular road cars without informing the buyers. It turned out to be a very reliable engine block. The rally gods were however slightly less favourable. Even before the rally started, the Mikkola Audi was seriously damaged by a mechanic. The team removed all the necessary parts from Michèle's practice car to be able to start. Unfortunately, the gearbox got stuck in its neutral position at the start of the first chrono stage. Wittmann's Audi retired after ten stages. Mouton had all kinds of problems keeping the Audi on the road; she regularly got off the course and had put the car on its side during a special stage. She only achieved three top 6 finishes in total. She ultimately finished seventh. This result and the difficult track position on the narrow, winding Corsican roads may well have been the basis for the development of the Sport Quattro with a shorter wheelbase.
Four Quattros against the Fiat Italia 037 turbo machines and the Rothmans-sponsored Opel of Mouton's title rival Röhrl took the start of the Acropolis Rally in Athens at the end of May. Four days of rally, 57 chrono stages. It had been raining in the region for a few days. It started with some asphalt stages and then a muddy course. Just the right thing for an Audi. Unfortunately, it was only Hannu Mikkola who was the fastest. The three other cars had small problems; Michèle had problems with the turbo. When the turbo concerns were resolved just before the fifth chrono stage, she got into a good fast rhythm and took the lead of the rally. During the afternoon, Mouton widened the gap on the pursuers and brought the lead over Toivonen's Opel to more than a minute. However, in the last stages, which were held in the dark, she lost half a minute due to poorly adjusted headlights. On Tuesday morning the participants started from Kalambaka, back towards Athens. Michèle continued to attack and quickly increased the gap with Toivonen, who was hampered by transmission problems. At the end of the first round she was more than six minutes ahead of Röhrl and sixteen minutes ahead of Jimmy McRae's Opel Ascona. On Wednesday in the Peloponnese, Michele continued to dominate calmly and collectedly. It seemed that everyone was trying to consolidate their results and spared the machines on the tough course. Not much changed on the last day. Michèle Mouton took her second victory of the year. She dominated the entire rally and humiliated the Lancia and Opel factory drivers, won 26 chrono stages and was in the lead of the world championship.
Michele Mouton - win number 4
In June, the world championship moves to the other side of the globe for the Rally New Zealand. The terrain is somewhat comparable to an RAC rally in November, but with longer timed stages, sometimes up to 80 km long. Mikkola was the fastest in the first six stages and took a small lead over Mouton, Rörhl and Waldegaard (Toyota). Unfortunately, bad luck continued to haunt him. The electronics of the injection failed and he dropped to seventh place. Waldegaard came into the lead now; Mouton second. But she had to deal with the rear braking system failure, which was torn off due to contact with a boulder. But the real pain came in the 15th stage. Michele informed her team by radio that they had stopped the car due to loss of oil pressure. It later turned out to only be a loose oil pipe, but in this she lost valuable places and points. Her teammate Mikkola gave everything and took the lead again, but electronic problems force him to quit for good.
The Audi team sended four Quattros to the Rallye do Brasil. Rothmans Opel had only one car and Safari legend Shekar Metha was there in a Nissan. In addition, there were many local rally drivers, so it would be five days of racing with some chaos. Hannu Mikkola's misery continued. After an initial battle with Walter Röhrl, he was surprised by a slippery surface and slided off the road. Michèle Mouton momentarily forgot her world championship points and stopped to help, but that did not help. After all, it took two hours before the Audi was back on the road. It was now up to Michèle to compete with the Opel. A bit difficult when the Audi became a 'three wheel drive', but at the end of the first etappe and 208 km chrono stages she was only 2 minutes behind Röhrl and 33 minutes ahead of Metha. The difference remained around one minute after the second etappe and dropped to 23 seconds after the third round. The final round consists of nine timed stages with a total of 254 km over ever-changing surfaces. Mouton set eight fastest times with the Audi and pushed Röhrl to second place. She won again, her fourth rally! Walter Röhrl remained championship leader with 99 points; Mouton had 72. At the time, this victory send shockwaves through motorsport and ruffled the feathers of a male dominated WRC arena, that initially struggled to accept Mouton as a genuine rival purely down to her gender.
A difficult rally for Mouton.
The Rally of Finland is completely different with sprint stages in forests and over vicious hills with a total of 1435 km including 745 km of timed kilometres. Mikkola and Mouton had two new Quattro’s and were supported by the Swede Stig Blomqvist, the only one who had already defeated the Finns on home turf. Opel relied on Henri Toivonen and Lancia was at the start with a new group B 037. It started badly for Audi. There were minor engine problems. But Mikkola was able to take the lead at the end of the first part. Michèle had done six practice days, was more confident than last year but remained cautiously eighth. Then Blomqvist pulled all out of the Audi and after 18 chrono stages, the Audi number 5 took the lead. But we lost Mouton. In the 16th stage she flew too high on a hill and landed too hard, causing the front differential to break and the Audi to end up in a ditch. She could continue but the Audi was completely unstable. Blomqvist won the most timed stages, but had to follow team orders, so the victory was for Mikkola.
It was Audi versus Opel again in the San Remo Rally beginning of october. Audi entered three official and three semi-official cars. The beginning of the rally was good with Röhrl in the lead followed by Mouton and Mikkola at the first break in Sienna. When the rally was going again in the direction of Pisa, it started to rain and things did not went well. All Audi's needed some repair in a very short time. Mouton only had a badly fixed suspenion, so she lost not much time. After the 18 stages of this econd run, Blomqvist was leading with 6 minutes in front of Michele and Mikkola with Röhrl only sixth. On the remaining tarmac stages, the opel drivers made the best tyre choices and they set the fastest times in all chrono stages. The past Mouton. Bloqvist was safe and won the rally, Mikkola was second an Mouton fourth, losing some points to Röhrl who was third.
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Without the duel between Walter Röhrl (Opel) and Michèle Mouton in the race for the 1982 world championship, the Ivory Coast rally would have little meaning. Rohrl actually had an aversion for endurance rallies. But he would leave Opel at the end of the year to drive for Lancia and he certainly needed a car in the last Rally, so he agreed to drive. He got to the start just in time. However, he did not do any reconnaissance drives because he had apparently not booked his plane schedule properly. All his notes were completed and updated by his co-driver Christian Geistdorfer, who was driven around by navigator Bruno Berglund. The Opel team's second car at the start in Abijan was driven by Bjorn Johansson and Berglund, with the aim of acting as a backup crew for Röhrl. The same tactics were being used by Audi, as the second Quattro was driven by Hannu Mikkola and Roland Gumpert, the team's chief engineer. They were only there to help Mouton and exchange parts if necessary. The third Audi was for Blomqvist; they would drive ahead of the ladies to report conditions by radio, and to wait in difficult spots and help if they got stuck.
Dirt roads form the basis of the Ivory Coast route, just as rough, dusty, sometimes muddy and heavy on the cars as those of the Safari, but much narrower and more overgrown with vegetation. Animals are also not as numerous as in the East, but the large number of trucks on the road is. Another characteristic of Ivory Coast is the very high cost of living. Rented vehicles cost a fortune, if you can get them at all. Audi found it cheaper to ship its service vans from Germany.
The start and finish of the rally were on Wednesday at Hotel Ivoire, a substantial modern establishment on the shore of one of Abidjan's network of lagoons and waterways connecting to the sea. The first leg headed north to Yamoussoukro, the president's birthplace with one large, modern hotel. The second and third stages went in loops starting and ending in Yamoussoukro, with one heading north close to the borders with Guinea and Mali, and one south to the port of San Pedro, close to the Liberian border. The fourth and final stage saw the participants return to Abidjan on Monday. It was Mouton's first African endurance rally. She got also under enormous emotional stress, because her father had suddenly died the day prior to the start. Her first impulse was to go back home. But she decided to go for the win, just as he would have wanted.
At the end of the first stage it looked that is exactly what she was doing as she was firmly in the lead, eight minutes ahead of her teammate Mikkola. Röhrl was another twelve minutes behind in third place. Despite the Audi's clutch and differential problems, which were partly solved by the application of Cola, their traction was superior on roads that were slippery from the heavy rain that fell before the start.
Despite a rear axle that had to be replaced and a number of radiator problems, Mouton was still in the lead in the third stage, but the distance to Röhrl was closing. The roads had dried up and became very dusty, with the added danger that muddy ruts in ditches were as hard as concrete.
Big problems at the start of the fourth stage. The Frenchwoman's Quattro refused to start. The fuel injection system needed to be replaced. She could continue with a marginal difference and everyone now expected an exciting finish. But that did not happen. Michèle was too fast, veered off the road and the car rolled quite a bit. Blomqvist and mechanics came to the rescue after a radio message. The car was straightened and repaired enough to continue. The ladies got on the road again, with a tenacity that most male rally drivers could learn something from.
Unfortunately, their vital pace notes had been lost in the confusion of the roll and subsequent recovery, and Fabrizia Pons had only the road book to guide her driver - a very poor, unprofessional road book at that. Added to this was the added danger of fog, and it became very difficult indeed for the girls to follow the correct path at a competitive speed. The inevitable happened; they went off again, this time with damage that could not be repaired in time. Rohrl took off and returned to Abidjan a comfortable winner and with the certainty of the world champion title assured.
It was a bitter blow for Michele Mouton, and it was probably only at the end that she was fully realizing her father's death. She quietly went to her room, packed her things and took the flight home that same evening. Unfortunately, she would not be world champion this year.
The last one.
The Lombard RAC Rally, the last championship rally of the year, took place around York. With the certainty that Mouton was not world champion, everything still had to be done for Audi to secure the constructors' title. Audi's target was helped enormously when an argument between Rohrl, who was not a fan of this rally because there were no 'pacenotes', was resolved by Opel team boss Tony Fall just on the eve of the event. On Sunday the 149 participants were set off by the Minister of Sports, Neil MacFarlane. The very heavy rain caused all kinds of problems in addition to the slippery roads. Loss of traction meant loss of time, as carburettors and electrics became very wet, the inside of the windows became completely fogged up by spray and some items in the cockpit came loose and got stuck under the pedals. Hannu Mikkola was the fastest through the parks of Clumber, Donington, Sutton and Bewdley and was leading the rally at a short rest in Cheltenham. In the wet fast stages in Wales he was able to maintain the lead ahead of Markku Alen (Lancia) and Ari Vatanen (Opel).
The restart on Tuesday morning in York for the second part of the rally took the rally drivers back north. Mouton quietly regularly got into the top three in these stages. The stage in Kielder Forest and the Lake District followed at night. She now was several times the fastest. At the next stop in York, Mikkola was still in the lead, but Michèle Mouton was second and Henri Toivonen (Opel) third. The devil is always in the tail. Start at York at midnight for the final loop around the Yorkshire woods in the early hours of Thursday morning, starting with the woods of Kilburn, Boltby, Ingleby and Guisborough. Mouton was the fastest in all four chrono stages. The traction of the Quattro’s had an advantage on the slippery roads and both Audi drivers were able to keep their position. Mikkola won the rally and Mouton was a close second, just nine seconds ahead of Toivonen. The constructors title went to Audi!
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A few years later in an interview by Walter Röhrl with Autosport magazine on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the WRC, he said the following about the 1982 rally year.
"It could have been much better if Michèle had been world champion. This would have been unique in our history" Walter Röhrl admitted that it would have been better for the sport had Mouton won the 1982 crown, further underlining his change in mindset.
“Many people ask me what it feels like to be a two-time world champion. I told them it meant more to win in Monte Carlo. It was a funny situation in 1982 with Michele. Looking back, I have the feeling that it was an unfortunate situation. It could have been much better if Michele had been world champion. This would have been unique in our history with a woman becoming world champion. I cannot see that ever happening anymore, I can only say sorry. She was like everyone else. I was never thinking during the race 'She's a woman'. It was a normal competitor and I was trying to beat her. But of course the problem was at this time we had this revolution from two- to four-wheel-drive that was a big thing, but it was a special motivation for me to try to beat them, even if I have only two-wheel -drive.”
