Sébastien Loeb takes lead in Ireland after cancellation of the last stages 30.01.2009: SS7 and SS8 cancelled: Loeb leads Rally Ireland after day one Event organisers stopped Friday’s opening day of Rally Ireland early because of flooded roads - a decision which means Sebastien Loeb will carry the 44sec rally lead he held after SS6 into Satu

SS7 and SS8 cancelled: Loeb leads Rally Ireland after day one

Event organisers stopped Friday’s opening day of Rally Ireland early because of flooded roads - a decision which means Sebastien Loeb will carry the 44sec rally lead he held after SS6 into Saturday’s competition.

The day’s last two stages - SS7 and SS8 - were both scheduled to be run in darkness, but after a day of persistent rain the amount of standing water on the road led organisers to cancel them both on safety grounds.

The amended itinerary meant teams remained in the Service Park after SS6 and carried out their end-of-day 45-minute service instead of the planned 30-minute interim halt.

From there crews drove their cars to the overnight Parc Ferme in Sligo ready for Saturday’s competition.

We’ll bring you team and driver quotes from the Service Park shortly.



SS6: Citroens in control after the repeat loop

The Citroen crews of Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena and Dani Sordo/Marc Marti rounded off Friday’s repeated stages in dominant form - setting the two fastest times and pulling further ahead of the rest of the Rally Ireland field.

Heading back to Sligo for the second 30-minute service of the day, Loeb’s rally lead stood at 44.4sec. “Yeah, it’s going okay,” he said. “I didn’t want to push earlier, we didn’t have the right tyre so we went carefully, but now we can push hard.”

Dani Sordo completed the stage four seconds slower than his team-mate, and with no recurrence of the brake problems he reported earlier. “On the last two everything was okay,” he said. “It feels really good to drive with the snow tyre. The feeling is nice. I’m confident with the car, the tyres, the notes - everything is perfect.”

Urmo Aava lost his third place when his Ford Focus spun off the road and into a water-filled ditch 6km from the start. Spectators eventually helped him get the car back on the road - largely undamaged - but the time lost meant he opted to retire from the day.

Mikko Hirvonen was third fastest through the stage and moved up a spot courtesy of Aava’s misfortune. “I’m trying to take the fight to Sordo but I stalled the engine at a junction on this one and that cost me some time. I’ll keep on moving,” he said.

Chris Atkinson completed the stage with his Citroen C4 WRC looking battered. The car had left-hand front corner damage, a broken front bumper, a left-hand rear puncture and signs of a heavy impact on the co-driver’s door. “About a couple of kilometres before the finish we aquaplaned, spun and hit a pole of the outside of the corner,” explained Chris. “We should be able to carry on but Stephane [Prevot, co-driver] has a sore shoulder, so we’ll have to see.”


SS5: Dani Sordo up to second

Citroen C4 WRC drivers Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo set the two fastest times through SS5, ensuring that Sebastien extended his rally lead and Dani moved ahead of Urmo Aava into second overall.

Loeb reported ‘phenomenal grip’ from his winter tyres in the rainy conditions and beat his earlier time (on SS2) by 50 seconds.

Sordo stopped the clock eight seconds slower than Loeb and pulled a 5.2sec lead over Mikko Hirvonen who moved ahead of Aava into third.

Neither Hirvonen nor Aava reported any specific problems through the stage, but Aava admitted to a couple of ‘moments’.

Henning Solberg held on to fifth overall, despite collecting a left-hand front puncture after he hit some rocks on the inside of a corner.



SS4: Loeb moves into the lead

Defending world rally champion Sebastien Loeb moved ahead of Urmo Aava and into the lead of Rally Ireland on SS4 - the repeat of the Glenboy stage run earlier as SS1.

Like all the leading competitors, Loeb had selected Pirelli’s Sotto Zero winter tyre for the repeat pass, even though the rain was not quite as heavy as it had been earlier. The Frenchman completed the 22km stage in the fastest time, bettering his earlier attempt by 1min 49sec, and moving into a rally lead of 31.8sec.

“It’s incredible how the snow tyre works in these conditions,” said Loeb. “It’s very good. There’s not so much standing water on the road as there was earlier and the grip is okay. Apart from a few places this tyre is better than the other one.”

Urmo Aava slipped to second place but remained upbeat about his progress on the event so far. Up to now his best WRC finish is the fourth place he scored on the 2008 Acropolis Rally of Greece last season.

I’m still feeling good after this morning,” he said. “Then we had the correct tyres and we did the job - now we have to continue to do our best.”

After setting the second-fastest stage time, Dani Sordo moved ahead of Mikko Hirvonen into third overall. “That wasn’t bad but I had a problem with the braking,” he said. “The pedal has a lot of travel and that makes it difficult. We will see now if we can improve it but I don’t have a lot of confidence in the braking.”

Hirvonen, meanwhile, was struggling to match Loeb’s pace for the duration of the stage. “He found some speed in there - we were a little ahead on the early split but it looks like he found a good rhythm later,” he explained. “That’s all I can do at the moment. If I can’t fight against him I need to get some points so I need to be a little bit careful.”

BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team driver Khalid Al Qassimi dropped from 10th to 13th after his car understeered off the road and struck a tree on its left-hand side. Spectators helped get Khalid’s car back on the stage and he completed the test in the 17th fastest time.



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-wrc-  photos Willy Weyens