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Once again it was road position that featured in the headlines. In first day Sainz was excluded for stopping in the stage between yellow warning board and flying finish board, in his quest to drop down the running order to optimal road position for Leg 2. Tactical games at the end of Leg 2 and beginning of Leg 3 reached new heights as leading drivers sought to avoid running first on road in final and deciding day.
Burns, Gronholm and Burns were within sight of each others. On penultimate stage of Leg 2 Makinen took jump start in order to incur 10 second penalty. Ingenuity of this maneuver was in the fact that penalty was announced only later in the evening when rivals no longer had possibility to make counter move. Burns responded next morning by discovering a puncture, likely self-inflicted, before first stage which he was allowed to change and start to stages behind his rivals.
To no avail as he was slowest over third leg. However, after winning event on stages scrutineers found that Makinen's Mitsubishi had an illegal turbo. Missing water cooling channel did not offer performance advantage and hence Mitsubishi was not penalised further but was excluded from the results. This handed win to Gronholm and virtually decimated Burns' championship chances by increasing his deficit to nine points with final round remaining.
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Rally Australia 2000 counts for:
2000 FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers/Co-drivers
2000 FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers
2000 FIA Cup for Drivers of Production Cars
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| 332nd WRC rally |
| Round of season: | 13 of 14 |
| Official name: | Telstra Rally Australia |
| Edition: | 13th |
| Date: | from Thursday 9-Nov-2000 to Sunday 12-Nov-2000 |
| Rally HQ: | Perth, Western Australia; Australia |
| Surface: | Gravel |
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| Entries: | 84 | |
| Starters: | 83 | |
| Finishers: | 49 | (59.0% of starters) |
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| Stages: | 21 | |
| Shortest: | 2.20 | km | (SS1 Langley Park 1) |
| Longest: | 45.42 | km | (SS13 Wellington Dam) |
| Slowest: | 84.53 | km/h | (SS17 Langley Park 3) |
| Fastest: | 120.65 | km/h | (SS18 Bannister West) |
| Planned stage distance: | 391.17 | km | (30.5% of total distance) |
| Actual stage distance: | 391.17 | km | (30.5% of total distance) |
| Road section distance: | 892.15 | km |
| Total distance: | 1,283.32 | km |
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| DRIVERS - PODIUM FINISHERS |
| | Win was 4th win and 6th podium for Marcus Gronholm. |
| Second place was 15th podium for Richard Burns. |
| Third place was 18th podium for Francois Delecour. |
| MAKES - PODIUM FINISHERS |
| | Win was 27th win and win and third place were 54th to 55th podiums for Peugeot. |
| | Second place was 75th podium for Subaru. |
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