Photo: Marius Torgersrud/Rally Norway

End of stage comments SS11 Lillehammer 1

Feb. 14, 2009 

1. Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroën C4)

“This was a very technical stage. I know I have done some mistakes, I ran wide and I ran into some snow banks. It was very tricky and then we had a very big jump at the end, bigger than I thought.“

3. Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)

“It didn’t go so well because Sebastien was faster than us. He is always beating me in this type of stage; we need to get back into the woods. I need to get better.”

6. Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)

“The gear box is working today but this stage was very loose. I am trying my best but we have more to do.”

2. Dani Sordo/Marc Marti (Citroën C4)

“I have a small problem: the car is too soft so we are struggling for precision. We need to look at the roll bars to fix that problem.”

5. Urmo Aava/Kuldar Sikk (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)

”It’s very bad; I have no feeling and no confidence. There is nothing to say today.”

4. Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Antilla (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)

“I hit a snow bank with the left rear of the car. The bank was very hard but I feel more confident in this stage. I was too sideways on the first stage this morning. I need to push harder to get more time back.”

11. Petter Solberg/Phill Mills (Citroën Xsara)

“It’s much more slippery today. I knew from the reccee that this would be difficult which is why we soften the car last night. We need to maybe make it softer but this stage was good. I like this kind of rally cross stage. It’s good to see so many people out. I am sure there will be even more this afternoon“

18. Mads Østberg/Ole Kristian Unnerud (Subaru Impreza WRC 2008)

“We still have very bad under steer. We did some adjustments at the start of the stage but is doesn’t help. We also have the problem with fog in the car still which means we still drive with the windows down.”

8. Conrad Rautenbach/Daniel Barrit (Citroën C4)

“We don’t have a good feeling with the brakes today. We changed the pads last night but it just doesn’t feel right at the front.”

12. Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Citroën C4)

”We have an alternator problem we tried to fix before the stage but it is still here.”

They then worked on the car for about 15 minutes outside the control.

20. Anders Grøndal/Maria Andersson  (Subaru Impreza WRC)

“I dropped 10 seconds when I went straight at one junction but other than that my feeling in the car is getting better.

16. Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)

“We nearly went off on the second corner. It was a bit stupid: we hit the bank on the left hand corner. On the jump at the finish, I landed badly and I think I have winded myself.”

7. Evgeny Novikov/Dale Moscatt (Citroën C4)

“We were one third of the way into the stage when we went into a snow bank on a right hand junction. It was very narrow and we needed lots of marshals to get out. We have dropped 3 or 4 minutes.”

19. P-G Andersson/Jonas Andersson (Skoda Fabia WRC)

“I really don’t like this kind of stage. It doesn’t suit me at all. It was just too tight and too narrow.”

59. Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Subaru WRX Sti)

”I slowed down a little bit on this stage because my speed was very high on the first one this morning. We took 50 seconds of second place so I think this was a bit fast. We need to take less risk.”

46. Patrick Sandell/Emil Axelsson (Skoda Fabia Super 2000)

“I had to speed up a little bit in this stage. I took it too steady in the first one but now I am happy with the speed and the car is perfect.”

47. Armindo Araujo/Miguel Ramalho (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX)

“This stage is very narrow and quite tough in a big car. I made two or three mistakes and missed some gears.”

31. Martin Prokop/Jan Tomanek (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX)

“This stage was a little better than the first. This morning my co driver told me I was driving light a bus driver so I told him to shut up and I put my foot down. I feel much happier with the car now.”

Published: 2009-02-14 11:23