Foto: Benjamin A. Ward/Rally Norway
Service Flash
1. Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroën C4)
I don’t know if they (Ford) made team orders or not. Mikko showed me his tyres before the stage
and they didn’t look very good. I don’t think he could have gone much quicker anyway. For me,
the afternoon was good. I thought I would lose more time than this in the ruts. I’m quite happy
with this position, okay, I would prefer to be second on the road, but this is how it is. I don’t think
there will be a big difference between being first and second [on the road] tomorrow.
3. Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)
I couldn’t drive faster in the last stage. The studs were moving in the tyre early and I knew we
weren’t going to be able to keep the lead. Maybe I should have done something with the car setup,
worked on the camber or something and that would not have used the tyre so much.
2. Dani Sordo/Marc Marti (Citroën C4)
The afternoon was good. I didn’t have any problems with the car. I’m happy with the way things
are. Tomorrow the roads are faster, which can be better for me – because I lose time in the
slower corners today, but as well the roads are narrow tomorrow. It can be tough.
6. Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)
The gearbox problem came back in the ninth stage. I don’t know what the problem is. It’s not my
day today. I will push hard again tomorrow and see what happens.
16. Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)
A good day today. Having the test before the event really helped get the confidence up. We’re in
the position today where we usually are on a Saturday or Sunday; we’re in the bunch and in the
battle rather than playing catch-up. I’m really happy with the way things have gone, the only
problem we’ve had has been a cracked windscreen. The last stage was quite tough, we’d lost a
lot of studs from the tyres.
8. Conrad Rautenbach/Daniel Barrit (Citroën C4)
We didn’t take two spares this afternoon and that was a mistake. We were getting a lot of
wheelspin out of the slow corners, which was causing us to lose the studs from the tyres. Things
should be better tomorrow, the roads are a bit faster and we’re going to make some changes to
the car tonight. We’re going to put the anti-roll bar back in at the front to stiffen the rear of the
car. We softened the car today in an effort to find some traction in the twistier stages;
tomorrow’s about the precision in the high-speed corners.
12. Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Citroën C4)
This afternoon was okay, except for stage eight, which was complete shit. After 200 meters, I
went off into the snowbank. This was okay, I came out of the bank, but the whole windscreen is
full of snow, so I have to stop to clear the screen so I can see where I’m going. After that, we
have complete fog in the car and I can’t see again. Then I missed my braking and we went off the
road again. Actually, I guess I was lucky because when we went off the last time, we only just
manage to reverse out of the snow bank. We could have still been there, but we are not, we are
here.
5. Urmo Aava/Kuldar Sikk (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)
We stalled twice in one stage and then went off for 30 seconds on the next stage. Not such a
great afternoon.
4. Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Antilla (Ford Focus RS WRC 08)
The rears were finished in the final stage of the loop. We had changed the tyres many times
during the loop to keep the best tyres for the front, this worked, but we lost studs from the rears.
The last stage was difficult. Overall, though, I am happier with the afternoon. When everybody
was running in the ruts, my times were improving immediately.
7. Evgeny Novikov/Dale Moscatt (Citroën C4)
This afternoon could have been better. I took the wrong spring; it was very hard and not suited
for these conditions. Okay, one of the times was not so bad, but I can’t say I am happy because of
the spring.
11. Petter Solberg/Phill Mills (Citroën Xsara)
The first stage out of service was good, we lowered the car at service and it felt better straight
away. But then I paid for not taking the two spare tyres. This was my decision and it was wrong.
We struggled with tyres this afternoon. I still need to feel more comfortable with the car; I need
to find more confidence before I can start pushing harder. We’ll make some changes to the car
tonight and have a look tomorrow.
46. Patrik Sandell/Emil Axelsson (Skoda Fabia Super 2000)
Have I slowed down? Yes and no. You have to push a little bit to make sure you are
concentrating, but we are looking at the risk all of the time. This is the first time I’ve had this kind
of a lead at the end of the first day. When I was in Jordan last year, we had the big lead at the
end of the second day, but we didn’t end that way – this shows that we have to be cautious,
everything can still happen in this rally. We will make some small changes to the car tonight,
basically to make the rear of the car more stable.
59. Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (Subaru WRX Sti)
So frustrating. My problem was the third stage, I was really pushing to try and get time out of
that Skoda. I came to a right-hander just before a junction and I was just too quick. The car went
into a ditch and we stayed there for something like three minutes. The spectators came to help
and they got us out, but the fight had gone. Now we have to start again and push tomorrow. I
still think I can get back to second; [Armindo] Araujo is one and a half minutes away. We’ll give it a go, but I probably won’t push quite so hard as I did today…
31. Martin Prokop/Jan Tomanek (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX)
I changed the differential programme this afternoon and that seems to have really helped my
time. I tried this programme on the test and didn’t like it at all. I wish I had tried it a bit earlier
now. I will push to try and catch Armindo [Araujo] tomorrow, we’ve got to give it a go, haven’t
we.
47. Armindo Araujo/Miguel Ramalho (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX)
Not such a bad afternoon. We’re second, now we’ve got to try and stay there. There are two long
days to fight with Martin [Prokop].
Published: 2009-02-13 23:19
Norsk
