Marcus or Mikko – which Finn will fly?

Rally Norway has turned out to be a battleground for Finns. After Leg 2, Hirvonen is up front with Grönholm only 19.3 seconds behind him. Three minutes further down, the Solberg brothers are dueling over the remaining podium position. World Champion Sébastien Loeb ruined his chances after an 8 minutes encounter with the deep snow.

Marcus Grönholm/Timo Rautiainen and Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lethinen, both in Ford Focus RS WRC 06 cars, are up to a tremendous fight over the first ever WRC round in Norway, the latter having an fairly safe lead of 19,3 seconds after the very challenging Leg 2.

Marcus is pushing madly from behind, but Mikko is defending his lead like a tiger. In the 27.3 kilometers SS13, only 0,3 seconds divided them.

“The pressure from Sébastien may be off now but the gap to Marcus is not very big, so we are still racing. I really want to win this rally,” said Mikko Hirvonen who struggled with a broken blower and a misting up windscreen throughout the afternoon.

During the medium long SS13 Marcus was eating seconds into his teammate’s lead and was well ahead of him at the split time, but then he missed a junction.

“I made a little mistake and had to turn the car around. I think I had taken a lot of time off Mikko until then but I lost it all again with that moment,” he said.

Both Finns are experienced winter rally drivers, but still they are facing a challenge tougher than any previous. Rally Norway presents them with very tricky stages and the winter conditions are extreme.

Dueling brothers

Only 9.9 seconds divide Petter Solberg/Phil Mills in third and Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud in fourth place after Leg 2, with Henning having hacked away at the gap all the day.

With Loeb stuck in the snow in SS12, the Olympic ski jump stadium stage, Rally Norway took on quite another character for the younger Solberg brother.

Having stressed the importance to concentrate on pushing safe and earning WRC points, Petter now faces a challenge from his brother to take over the position as Norway’s fastest driver.

Both brothers are known as being competitive to the bone and hating to lose.

Finishing the 1.14 km showcase SS14 in downtown Hamar, Petter Solberg regretted that he couldn’t offer the large crowd any spectacle.

”In this situation we are fighting. Now it’s nothing but flat out,” he said.

The temperature of the fight is underlined by Henning’s comment after having been 50 seconds faster than his brother on SS11 Mountain.

”I was pushing for maximum throughout the whole thing. When you’re on the limit like that it’s really fun, but you don’t want to do it too often,” he said.

We can expect hard pushing in the remaining four stages, and the decision might very well fall on the last SS18 of 44.28 km!