Solberg steadies Stobart’s Greek misfortunes
The opening three stages of the Acropolis Rally of Greece threw everything at crews as the seventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship got underway this morning. Mixed fortunes met the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford rally team as Henning Solberg leads the way for the team in sixth.
Matthew Wilson too put in a solid effort to hold 12th place by the end of this morning’s loop of three stages. Unfortunately a broken propshaft, with four kilometres of stage 3 left to go, lost the youngster around half a minute and a couple of places on the leaderboard. Solberg was not also without dramas after he overshot two junctions at hairpins on the same test losing valuable seconds in the process.
It was not so fortunate for team-mates Gigi Galli/Giovanni Bernacchini who retired this morning after a speedy start from the Italian crew. 12.6 kilometres into stage 2 on a fast left hand corner they hit a large rock in the middle of the road which was pulled out by another competitor. It immediately broke the front right track control arm in the suspension and this in turn pulled the driveshaft out of the gearbox. Galli has retired from today and a decision on whether he returns tomorrow under SupeRally regulations will be made by the team when his car arrives back to service this afternoon.
Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Team Driver Henning Solberg said:
“We have had a good feeling with the car all morning and it is staying strong in these tough conditions. The stages are not as rough as I thought they were going to be but it is extremely hot in the car so I am just trying my best to concentrate on my driving. We had a couple of small overshoots coming into some hairpins on stage 3 which lost us about six seconds but this was our only problem this morning I am not pushing that hard yet so this afternoon we will look to improve our pace some more.”
Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Team Driver Matthew Wilson said:
“We had a really good start to the rally and the car was felling strong in the first two stages and my confidence was much better than in Sardinia. The first stage was very technical so I just tried to stay neat and this worked because we set a good time. However the third stage was totally the opposite, we had two overshoots, first at a hairpin and the second at a slow corner when I tried to avoid a big rock and we stalled the engine. Then with three kilometres to go the propshaft broke and we just had to cruise to the end of the stage.”
Leaderboard after SS3
1. J-M Latvala/M Attila FIN Ford Focus RS 39m22.5s
2. S Loeb/D Elena F Citroën C4 +4.2s
3. D Sordo/M Marti E Citroën C4 +6.2s
4. M Hirvonen/J Lehtinen FIN Ford Focus RS +26.2s
5. P Solberg/P Mills N Subaru Impreza +27.4s
6. H Solberg/C Menkerud N Ford Focus RS +34.4s
7. U Aava/K Sikk EE Citroën C4 +39.6s
8. C Atkinson/S Prevot AUS Subaru Impreza +45.7s
9. P-G Andersson/J Andersson SWE Suzuki SX4 +1m03.4s
10. F Villagra/J Maria Volta RA Ford Focus RS +1m04.4s
12. M Wilson/S Martin GB Ford Focus RS +1m23.3s