WRC RALLYES - UDDEHOLM SWEDEN RALLY - Tough at the top and Subaru's day gets no better
03.02.2006:
WRC RALLYES - UDDEHOLM SWEDEN RALLY - Tough at the top and Subaru's day gets no better
The top three positions of the event remain as they did following the first pair of stages but that doesn't reflect the intense competition. Gigi Galli took the third stage and Sebastian Loeb took the fourth. However, barely second separated the three across all of the first four stages.
Gronholm suffered a small spin in the third stage and this, with one or two other mistakes, knocked his confidence slightly. However, Loeb admitted that it would be a tough fight. "I'm going as fast as I can," he said. "At one point, there was a lot of snow in the road that wasn't there in the recce. We hit it and we're very lucky we didn't break anything."
Hirvonen, in third, 11.6 seconds behind Loeb, was finding the second run through the stages trickier. "The levels of grip are changing quite a lot," he said.
Having repaired Petter Solberg's Impreza after the first pair of stages this morning, Subaru's afternoon soon returned to similar levels of frustration. Chris Atkinson went off the road near the beginning of the first stage and into a ditch. He managed to rejoin the road but the power steering failed and he was forced to drive the remainder of that stage and the next 27Km with no power assistance.
"These cars are extremely hard to drive with no power steering; more so with the mechanical differentials," he said. "We're a long way back now, probably too far back to make much difference."
Solberg's car was driving all four wheels again but his transmission began to select neutral on its own, on the second of the two repeated stages. He and co-driver Phil Mills began to notice transmission shift pressure was dropping and eventually, they lost it altogether.
They stopped and mechanically selected first gear underneath the car, and continued to service. They arrived with just two minutes to spare before going OTL. The team replaced the transmission and he was able to carry on, albeit with a further 2min10sec penalty for arriving at service late.
copyright Premium TV Ltd http://www.wrc.com/ photos automobilsport.com Luc Depiesse ISC Ltd, London 2006
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"I have taken weiter >>
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L weiter >>
First time this event has qualified for the Junior World Rally Championship.
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The total route is some 300km shorter weiter >>
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Ex-works M weiter >>
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Daniel Carlsson took his second Uddeholm Swedish Rally stage win in a row as Sebastien Loeb's brave attempt to nurse his sick second-placed Citroen to the end of the event failed, when the car stopped before the stage. The Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo winner and pre-event points leader appears to be out of the rally.
Carlsson beat Mitsubishi's Gigi Galli to the top time weiter >>
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