A car's main weak point, and also had several other cosmetic changes including a new front bumper and rear spoiler. On the driver front the team continued to be led by double World Rally champion Carlos Sainz, who drove all fourteen rounds, winning the Acropolis and Indonesia rallies, also often finishing on the podium. He would eventually finish third in the championship. The second seat was initially filled by German driver Armin Schwarz, however, he was replaced after the sixth round in Corsica, following some disappointing results, and the fact that his sponsorship money had not arrived. His understudy was a more than capable Juha Kankkunen, who completed the season in the second car, finishing on the podium on no less than six occasions. A third car was entered at the Network Q RAC Rally for Angelo Medghini. Ford finished second in the manufacturer's championship, being sandwiched by champions Subaru and third placed Mitsubishi. 1998 season 1998 marked the final season of the Escort WRC, with that year's Rally of Great Britain being its last event, ending the model name's thirty-year association with factory-backed international rallying. The team retained the services of four-time world champion Finn, Juha Kankkunen and Belgian Bruno Thiry, a championship mainstay and veteran pilot of previous Ford rallying models, including the Escort RS Cosworth. Carlos Sainz had left the team at the end of the 1997 season and took the Repsol S.A. sponsorship with him. The Escort WRC started the Monte-Carlo Rally with a new blue and white Ford livery, and a dedication to ex-Ford rally legend Roger Clark who died earlier in the year. As events transpired, neither driver would manage to mark the Escort's swansong year with a final victory. The Escort still proved, frustratingly for the championship hopeful Kankkunen, persistently ineffective on asphalt rounds of the calendar, woes for which not even Thiry's performances could compensate. A late injury to the Belgian provided an early season cameo role for 1981 world champion Ari Vatanen, who finished third at the Safari Rally, behind compatriot Kankkunen and first-time world rally victor for Mitsubishi, Richard Burns. Kankkunen eventually scored sufficient points and podiums, including second ahead of Thiry in Britain, to finish fourth in the 1998 drivers' standings, although, with the announcement of the looming high-profile arrival of Colin McRae to the team for the following year, this success did not deter the Finn from deciding