RALLY NEWS NO.7                  Sennybridge Regroup/Saturday 09.45

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 Halfway
1st (7) Petter Solberg/Phil Mills (Subaru) 1.50.03.5
2nd (18) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Xsara WRC) 1.50.18.2
3rd (8) Tommi Makinen/Kaj Lindstrom (Subaru) 1.51.46.1
4th (17) Colin McRae/Derek Ringer (Xsara WRC) 1.51.57.5
5th (3) Harri Rovanpera/Risto Pietilainen (206 WRC) 1.53.09.3
6th (5) Francois Duval/Stephane Prevot (Focus WRC) 1.54.09.3
7th (22) Roman Kresta/Jan Tomanek (206 WRC) 1.54.49.6
8th (2) Freddy Loix/Sven Smeets (206 WRC) 1.54.52.8
9th (34) Manfred Stohl/Ilka Minor (206 WRC) 1.55.21.9
10th (24) Juuso Pykalisto/Risto Mannisenmaki (206 WRC) 1.55.44.4
11th (25) Daniel Sola/Alex Romani (Xsara) 1.55.51.3
12th (20) Jari-Matti Latvala/Mika Anttila (Focus WRC) 1.56.47.5

Over the first 2 stages this morning Petter Solberg managed to extend his lead by a few valuable seconds. On stage 8 Crychan, the Subaru driver was 4s faster than Sebastien Loeb in the Xsara and on stage 9, Halfway, Petter's advantage was 2.7 seconds.  The battle for 3rd place is equally intense, with Colin McRae 0.4 of a second faster than Makinen on stage 8 and on stage 9 Tommi pulled 4s back from Colin. 

As the cars lined up for the regroup control here at Sennybridge Petter commented "Different conditions this morning from what we expected, I think the tyre choice was not so good".  Indeed tyre choice seemed to be the main subject of concern amongst the top drivers. Loeb's co driver Daniel Elena also admitted that they had picked too hard a compound tyre. Colin McRae told us "We had a steady run, the car is working fine, it was very slippery". 

Further back in the order the rally seems to have lost another top driver in that Gilles Panizzi's Peugeot reportedly had hydraulic problems before the start of stage 8, certainly has not appeared here as yet. Another in hydraulic trouble was Gardemeister, he had to put his Skoda into manual mode for the 2 stages, and lost almost a minute on stage 8, approximately half a minute in stage 9. 

Didier Auriol spun his Skoda in stage 8, the 2 front wheels dropped off the edge of the track and he had to enlist the help of some strong spectators to get the car back on course.  It certainly cost the Frenchman at least 1 minute.

Antony Warmbold is now lying 14th in his Focus WRC and commented "We're getting more traction than yesterday, there are lots of blind corners on these stages this morning and I want to confirm at least once how fast I can take them.  It is difficult when you make the notes at slow speed".  Latvala commented that he is braking just a little bit early after the fast sections. Roman Kresta admitted to an overshoot at a turn left junction and lost 2 or 3s.  Duval was another to say that it was the first time on these stages at this speed but it was going OK. Steve Perez is now getting to grips with his new Vodka Kick Focus WRC, and said "Stage by stage it is getting better, I came here to learn".

News of the Junior WRC is that Carlsson in the Suzuki is leading Kris Meeke by 10s after this 9th stage, Baldacci is still 3rd in his Fiat.

More news later. BRIAN AND LIZ PATTERSON