The Top 10 positions were more or less settled before Leg 3, but one position had to be settled.
The fight for second was definitely on between Petter Solberg and Dani Sordo. Five seconds separated Solberg and Sordo at the start of the day, and was whittled down to 3.8 secs after the first stage of the day, but Sordo just took the runner-up position by 6.8 secs. Sordo took only one stage win while Solberg took two, but the final nails in Solberg's coffin was when Sordo beat Solberg by 2.7 secs when he won SS12 and 1.3 secs over the final stage.
Gracious in defeat, Solberg was happy with his rally and new navigator Chris Patterson's job: “When we started the rally, both myself and Chris were quite nervous. But I have to say he did an excellent job.”
Sebastian Ogier had a rather lonely drive home to fourth, completing a Citroen 1-2-3-4. The other Citroen Junior driver Kimi Raikkonen was on course to finish 10th, but he went off on the final stage and beached the C4 on a bank, losing just under a minute in the process.
Ford closed out the rest of the Top 10, more or less. Frigyes Turan finished eighth in his 307 WRC. BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala came home fifth and sixth respectively. Stobart Ford drivers P-G Andersson and Matt Wilson finished seventh and ninth. Andersson was under strict orders to bring the Focus home intact, which he did very well. Henning Solberg, in his Fiesta S2000 debut, finished tenth. Solberg described driving the Fiesta as 'put the foot down and have fun!'.
“We have to keep working hard to improve. We just tested a few things for future rallies today. I think we learned something that will help on the remaining asphalt rallies.” concluded Hirvonen.
No comments:
Post a Comment