Petter “Soft Tyre” Solberg chases Sebastien Loeb

Oh, it could be very interesting tomorrow in Greece. Petter Solberg is the man of the day, and easily could be man of the rally as well if he continues putting the pressure on overnight leader Sebastien Loeb. With only 10.2 seconds separating the two it’s far from over.

Jari-Matti Latvala’s hopes lasted until the first stage of the second loop – he made a mistake and clipped a bank, which resulted in puncture and consequently in broken wheel. Ford’s ace was forced to stop on stage and replace damaged wheel and that sent him tumbling down the order. Latvala ends day two in fourth spot, 4 minutes and 44 seconds behind Loeb. With huge gaps both in front and behind him, Latvala can simply concentrate on finishing this rally and collecting some badly needed points.

Another driver with luck issues this year is Andreas Mikkelsen. Norwegian youngster was pushing his Volkswagen team mate throughout the day and with both cars well within top 10 they were looking for a very solid finish in Greece. First to encounter problems was Sebastien Ogier, his Škoda Fabia S2000 developed power steering problems and he slowed down, enabling Mikkelsen to climb up the order. However, Norwegian’s luck decided to bail out when Mikkelsen’s Fabia started overheating. Although crew managed to repair the broken pipe, car had to retire for the night.

With Solberg keeping Loeb on his toes I cannot but mention the silly decision to do single Thursday stage on soft tyres. Time lost then is still haunting Solberg, and despite trying his best to reduce the gap in tricky wet conditions in closing stages of day 2, it is Loeb who is in the lead and 10 seconds is both little and much. Is it too mcuh? We’ll see tomorrow!

Drive of the day: well, Petter Solberg, right?

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