Wonder woman

Sir,

I very much enjoyed Wonder Woman, the article about Michele Mouton in your June issue.

Some aspects in Liz Turner’s article need minor correction. The main opponents in 1981 were the Ford Escort of Ari Vatanen and the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus of Guy Frequelin. Whereas the Finnish pilot took the driver’s crown, the Talbot marque won the makes title.

From today’s perspective, Audi’s impact on the way the sport developed cannot be underrated, but in terms of sheer performance the team was rather weak. Audi should have performed much better, had they not fallen for the tricks the complicated car regularly played at them.

Walter Rohrl’s famous remark about a trained monkey winning in an Audi Quattro had a certain irony when the champion sat in a Quattro for the first time. Rohrl’s first outing in the Quattro was in November 1983 during the Rallye Köln-Ahrweiler. When trying to cope with the Quattro’s tendency to understeer, he failed to negotiate a corner and had a huge shunt.

I somewhat doubt that Henri Toivonen’s sad death was the reason for Michele’s decision to stop rallying. Not only did she continue to drive the group B cars throughout 1986, she enjoyed them very much. Officially, she announced that her retirement was not only in order to live life and have a family, but because she didn’t want to be bored in the really somewhat under-powered Group A machinery of that time.

I am yours, etc

Alexander Von Wegner, Hampton Hill