Battle for podium heats up, Solberg is flying

While Sebastien Loeb is driving routinely and taking care of his advantage and avoiding mistakes, battle is raging behind him. Dani Sordo, Petter Solberg and Mikko Hirvonen are embroiled in fierce clash for places on podium. Second stage of today’s leg brought few surprises.

Petter Solberg was the man of the moment, shaving over 12 seconds of Sordo’s lead and getting close to second place. At the same time, Hirvonen lacked confidence on few damp places on stage and he lost time to Solberg, losing touch with the Norwegian and final spot on the podium.

1. Loeb 4:00:10.9
2. Sordo +2:30.7
3. Solberg +3:10.6
4. Hirvonen +3:41.1
5. Novikov +5:13.8
6. Delecour +6:49.3
7. Campana +8:05.6
8. Tanak +9:18.0
9. Prokop +15:22.3
10. Araujo +15:28.0

“It was OK, stage is very narrow and we need to keep going and stay on the road. We took hard tyres and it was very good choice”, Sebastien Loeb.

“I really tried pushing on this stage but it wasn’t as good as first one. We need to keep an eye on what Petter is doing”, Dani Sordo.

“I don’t think we did specially good on this stage, I made some mistakes and I think Mikko might take some time on me. We need to keep focused!”, Petter Solberg.

“Petter obviously pushed hard on damper sections, I didn’t so he was faster. We’ll see how it goes, we must reach the finish and avoid mistakes”, Mikko Hirvonen

“We have power steering problem, but we’re quite good for 50 years old”, Francois Delecour.

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