Sebastian Loeb has ended Day 1 with only one thing in mind, hold onto first and win the rally. Another former winner of this event, Petter Solberg is 33.2secs behind Loeb after his turbo problems on SS2, where he dropped over 40 secs to leader. Solberg had been leading Mikko Hirvonen by 3secs going into SS2. The Finn is third, 53.1secs behind Loeb after his puncture on SS7.
Loeb's team-mate Sebastian Ogier took the decision to drop time on SS8 to give himself a more favourable road position for Day 2. The Frenchman says he won't be able to fight for the win because of a lack of 'feeling' in the DS3 WRC. He said that he dropped the time to “try and help the team”. He starts tomorrow fourth, 55secs off the leader.
PSWRT driver and team owner Petter Solberg is looking to be going to push hard tomorrow after his Day 1 problems. He sits over 30secs behind Loeb, but he has a more favourable place in the running order. He said: “I’m fed up with tactics so I just wanted to push and I’ll push again tomorrow.”
The works Fords had two completely different days today. Team leader Mikko Hirvonen won SS2, SS5 and SS8 and lead for two stages in the morning. A puncture slowed him on SS7 but he is still third. Team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala rolled on SS1 after Miikka Anttila called a wrong note. He damaged the suspension in the roll, and stopped on the next when the suspension wishbone snapped.
“I don’t blame Miikka. I've made plenty of mistakes behind the wheel and every co-driver has made an error at some point. We all try to be perfect, but we're only human and I feel disappointed for Miikka also.” he said.
Mads Ostberg is fifth after some brake problems today. He is one place ahead of MINI driver Dani Sordo, but only has a lead of 29secs over the ever improving MINI John Cooper Works.
“Honestly I’m really happy with the performance of the car. I pushed the car in the afternoon, slid more and was more aggressive with the car. The car really is not bad for the first time and we did not have any problems.” he said.
Sordo's team-mate Kris Meeke went on a flyer over the first few stages before a stuck throttle put him off the road on SS3. He was seventh after SS1 and an amazing fourth after SS2, only 15secs behind then-leader Hirvonen.
“We’ll just go out, get to the start line of the first stage, find our feet and go again just like we did on Friday. There are no tactics to go on a big push or anything like that. We just have to drive and see where we are. It’s doubly frustrating that we had a problem because we had the pace with absolutely no heroics, dramas or anything. I’m just looking forward now to getting kilometres on the car.” he said.
Meeke did say that he isn't able to lead a rally yet, but it wasn't expected that he would be fourth after two stages in a brand new car, which hasn't ever competed on a rally, let alone a WRC qualifier.
“It’s not an easy place to come and learn a new car as it proved but there is a lot more to come. I’m not at level where I can lead a rally yet, I have so much to learn but it’s brilliant to know when I haven’t done a rally in seven months, in brand new car, brand new everything that after 40 kilometres we were lying in fourth place.” he added.
The Italian stages have claimed many victims, some very high profile. Jari-Matti Latvala, Evgeny Novikov, Henning Solberg, PG Andersson, Kris Meeke and a host of others. 28 crews are due to restart on Saturday under SupeRally rules.
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