RALLY NEWS NO.4                              Sligo/Service/Friday 3.15

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 7 Lough Gill

1st (1) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen C4) 1.07.50.9

2nd (2) Dani Sordo/Marc Marti (Citroen C4) 1.07.57.7

3rd (9) Jari Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Focus WRC) 1.09.02.5

4th (4) Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Focus WRC) 1.09.02.7

5th (7) Petter Solberg/Phil Mills (Impreza WRC) 1.09.42.2

6th (10) Henning Solberg/Goran Bergsten (Focus WRC) 1.09.59.3 

7th (18) Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Impreza WRC) 1.10.43.4

8th (5) Manfred Stohl/Iika Minor (Xsara WRC) 1.11.04.1

9th (16) Matthew Wilson/Michael Orr (Focus WRC) 1.12.29.4

10th (27) Tim McNulty/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 1.13.11.4

Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo have been swapping stage times through the last loop of tests, with very little to choose between the two Citroens.  Latvala has now got ahead of Hirvonen in the race for 3rd place and Mark Higgins has moved up into 12th o/a and continues to lead the Production category. Andreas Aigner led the Production category earlier but he crashed on stage 7 and blocked the road with his Lancer.

“The most important thing now is to stay on the road” was Sebastien Loeb’s comment when he came into service.  His team mate Dani Sordo commented. “There is a lot of mud, we maintain position and attack, but not crazy”.  Third placed Hirvonen’s co driver Jarmo Lehtinen reported that they had gambled on a really soft slick tyre but it didn’t work on the muddy stuff and they knew from the split times they were quickest on the dry bits of road but lost time on the muddy stuff.  Jarmo also said “Don’t need to hurry, our main objective is to get 3 Manufacturer points”.  Latvala, now into 3rd place, said. “We went very well after service and then more carefully on this one, the car is fantastic”. 

Petter Solberg in 5th reports that his engine is running clean again, his co driver Phil Mills commented. “We can’t challenge those red cars at the front we can just about stay with Mikko”.  As for Petter himself he looked rather gaunt and had been on medication during the week to combat ‘flu.  Manfred Stohl commented. “Its as good for me as these conditions will allow. We have a little problem with the brakes”.  Matthew Wilson said. “We made no mistakes on that loop. We were 1-2 seconds slower per stage most people were a lot more”.  Guy Wilks is running on Pirelli tyres and he was having discussions with the technicians as to tbe best choice. Guy said that the conditions were still horrendous and there are places where no tyre could cope, but overall he was pleased with his progress. Having said that, there are a few discreet murmurings about Guy’s engine being slightly down on power but nobody was being too forthcoming about it.

Chris Atkinson’s co driver Stephan Prevot said everything was basically OK but there still some things to do to the car following this morning’s accident. Khalid Qassimi is certainly in at the deep end here, it is a long way from the desert to the muddy roads of Sligo and Leitrim and just one of his comments was. “Its hard to have the confidence, it is like trying to show a baby how to walk before he can crawl”.  He continued. “That is what it is like for me here. I need more mileage. I have not got the confidence to push and see how the car would react”.  Andrew Nesbitt softened the suspension on his Subaru, picked different Pirelli tyres and said it was much better, more flowing. Andreas Mikkelsen reported that on the first stage after last service his car was fine and then the same problem with the hydraulic gear change returned and cost more time.

Kris Meeke put his Subaru off the road on a slippy 3 right after a short cresty straight on stage 7 and then Eamonn Boland put his Subaru off on the same corner. Eamonn was distracted by a spectator waving him down.  There is no damage to Eamonn’s car but he lost a lot of time and will rejoin under Super Rally rules. We reported on our last Rally News that Kris Meeke lost time in stage 5 when the engine lost power. This apparently was down to an errant turbo pipe. He went reasonably well in stage 6 and then crashed in stage 7.  The Subaru ended up 15 feet down off the road and there was a fair bit of damage. Amazingly though the spectators got him out eventually and he appeared here at service, although running very late. Niall McShea lost some time when his Impreza suffered 2 punctures.  Niall then got caught up behind the Aigner accident so he was pretty late here as well. Nasser Al-Attiyah said. “I think we have a very good pace and everybody else push too hard in places”.  Tim McNulty clipped a front left wheel in his Pierse Subaru, cut a square left too tight and the car went about 4 feet in the air. Tim said. “Lucky to get here”. Kevin Barrett in the Triton Showers Subaru had his wipers fail in stage 6, Arigna, and really struggled through the heavy rain.

More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net

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