Rally Update
Leg One
Solberg Bitter Sweet: A pleasant change of pace for Solberg as his Impreza fought for the lead, sharing stage wins and the rally lead until the end of the day where the Subaru would not re-start at the check point, incurring a heart breaking five minute penalty and dropping him out of the order.
Citroen stamped their authority on the rally with Loeb in the lead, and Sainz finishing the leg in third place.
Macros Gronholm is second in his Peugeot, and Markko Martin finished fourth after stage 4 in his Ford Focus. Duval finished the day sixth in the second of the Focus World Rally Cars.
Leg Two - Focus takes the lead!
Markko Martin was the big mover of the day, taking control of the rally by the horns. A sour twist to a great day, he received a ten second penalty for late arrival at the last service park, but his lead over Carlos Sainz is still 15 seconds.
Francois Duval also did well making his way to second overall, but dropping to third on the last stage of the day, less than four seconds behind second man Sainz.
Sebastian Loeb will not win a third rally in a row, after he hit a rock and damaged the sump on his Xsara WRC and into retirment.
Petter Solberg won every stage on day two, lifting him from 13th overall to fifth, although he is still over 3 and a half minutes behind the leaders. The other Subaru of Hirvonen is in fourth.
It was a day for Peugeot to forget, with both cars in the top five at the end of stage one, dropping to 6th (Gronholm) and 16th (Rovanpera) due to power steering problems and bent steering arms.
Overall Standings
1. 7 MARTIN-PARK Ford Focus
2. 4 SAINZ-MARTI Citroen Xsara + 00'14"50
3. 8 DUVAL-PREVOT Ford Focus + 00'18"10
4. 2 HIRVONEN-LEHTIN Subaru Impreza + 02'40"80
5. 1 SOLBERG-MILLS Subaru Impreza + 03'41"70
6. 5 GRONHOLM-RAUTIA Peugeot 307 + 04'24"50
7. 12 VALIMAKI-HONKAN Hyundai Accent + 06'52"90
8. 9 PANIZZI-PANIZZI Mitsubishi Lancer + 09'05"10
9. 11 WARMBOLD-PRICE Ford Focus + 09'19"20
Pictures and facts from
Rally-Live.com
Cheers.... Tim!
Rally of Mexico - March 12-14
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