Juha Kankkunen by then lost the title to Mäkinen. Kankkunen stayed with Ford for the 1998 season with Belgian driver Bruno Thiry as his new teammate, after Sainz had opted to re-join Toyota. Ford was already moving resources into developing the new Ford Focus WRC and the team's last year with the Escort WRC was winless. Kankkunen drove the car on the podium on seven occasions, and both Ford and Kankkunen finished fourth in their respective championships. For the 1999 season, Ford signed the Subaru World Rally Team star Colin McRae and Kankkunen moved to replace him at Subaru. Kankkunen's first year
Subaru Vivio the car. He made the decision to enter three of the sports model "Vivio Super KK" driven by Masashi Ishida, local driver Patrick Njiru and up and coming WRC star Colin McRae on his Safari debut. "Super KK" is the FIA homologation name for the RX-R grade, in rally trim the 660 cc engine produced at 6,000 rpm. Only one of the three cars finished where it settled for 12th place driven by Njiru. McRae did manage to set the fastest stage time before managing up to two stages up to Makindu before retiring with suspension failure. He later said