Photo: swrt.com

Rally Norway Leg 2

End of stage comments stage 11 Mountain 1

Snowing hard, temperature 0°C

17 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløtene (Ford Focus)
It was much worse than the first stage this morning.  It was really crazy.  The problem is that I was first on the road, so there were no lines to follow.  It was just a question of staying on the road.

25 Juho Hänninen/Mikko Markkula (Mitsubishi Lancer WR05)
It was so, so difficult.  For sure the hardest part of the rally so far.  I’ve driven in some snow rallies but nothing like this ever before.  Really, I wasn’t thinking of setting a quick time: just getting to the end.

6 Daniel Carlsson/Denis Giraudet (Citroen Xsara WRC)
I thought the first stage this morning was the most difficult of my career.  But maybe I was wrong! I am not very happy with my driving but just to get to the end is okay.

9 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Antilla (Ford Focus RS WRC 06)
We were bouncing off all the snow banks.  The most difficult thing was finding the braking point because the road was a complete wipeout: you couldn’t see where the corners were.  It was fun in a strange kind of way!

8 Chris Atkinson/Glenn MacNeall (Subaru Impreza WRC 2006)
Some snow blocked the air intake and the engine was really down on power.  We didn’t go off the road or anything.  It was just being shoveled up the front splitter.  Disappointing but that’s the story of our rally really.

5 Manfred Stohl/Ilka Minor (Citroen Xsara WRC)
I think we hit every snow bank that was there.  We were just bouncing off them all the time.  It was the only way to get round.  Otherwise we’d be absolutely nowhere.

10 Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud (Ford Focus RS WRC 06)
Absolutely crazy!  But I was pushing for maximum throughout the whole thing.  There’s no way I could have gone any quicker.  When you’re on the limit like that it’s really fun, but you don’t want to do it too often.  I think this stage is a real legend.

19 Gigi Galli/Giovanni Bernacchini (Citroen Xsara WRC)
It’s very, very difficult.  I’m sure Henning will be past me.  I like snow because I come from Livigno (Italian ski resort) but this is something else.

21 Toni Gardemeister/Jakke Honkanen (Mitsubishi Lancer WR05)
I had great fun.  The only problem for me was that the engine felt very lazy.  I’m not sure what it was: maybe it was snow blocking the air filter, or maybe just the altitude, but something with the engine was not right.

7 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills (Subaru Impreza WRC 2006)
I have no traction, no braking, nothing.  There was absolutely nothing more I could do on that stage.  It was impossible.  Okay, I didn’t go off, which was good, but I’m sure I’ve lost a lot of time.

1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen C4)
Towards the beginning of the stage I just went a little bit deep in a left hand corner.  And I think that put some snow into the air intake so my car lost about 100 horsepower.  There was nothing I could do.  It was a real struggle, so I just had to drive slowly to the end.

3 Marcus Grönholm/Timo Rautiainen (Ford Focus RS WRC 06)
It was okay for me and I’m pleased to be quicker than Sébastien, but let’s see what time Mikko does.  I still want to win – not finish second.

4 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lethinen (Ford Focus RS WRC 06)
Wow: that was amazing!  So, so difficult.  I don’t think I have ever driven a stage quite like that.  It would have been incredibly easy to make a mistake because it was really hard to see the road.  In fact it looked like there was a blizzard going on.

22 Xavier Pons/Xavier Amigo (Mitsubishi Lancer WR05)
That was not easy at all.  My aim now is just to get to the end of the rally.  So I was not taking any risks.  I’m very pleased with the car: so far it seems perfectly reliable.

20 Jan Kopecky/Filip Schovanek (Skoda Fabia WRC)
The key to this stage was to stay on the line and be very neat.  The minute you move from the middle of the road, you can get stuck in the soft snow at the sides.  On roads that are as difficult as this there’s no point trying to be a hero.

45 P-G Andersson/Jonas Andersson (Suzuki Swift S1600)
That was a lot of fun.  I had a few moments but this is what driving’s all about.  The organisers have done a great job.  What a stage! 

31 Patrik Sandell/Emil Axelsson (Renault Clio R3)
I found it very difficult.  The problem was that there was a big gap between ourselves and the World Rally cars, so a lot of snow had fallen in the meantime and there was no line to follow.  Sometimes it felt like you had to guess which way the road was going.

37 Aaron Burkart/Timo Gottschalk (Citroen C2 GT)
A great stage for me, because it was one of the few ones we have done without any problems.  I was being generally quite careful, but in the places where I felt confident, I could push quite hard.

36 Jan Mölder/Katrin Becker (Suzuki Swift S1600)
A very, very tricky stage for me.  I still don’t have a lot of experience of driving on snow and this is certainly not the easiest place to learn.  The car’s been fine today; it’s just the conditions that are difficult.