After another incident-filled day on the gravel roads of Rally Finland, Petter Solberg moved up the leaderboard to hold fourth place overnight. Solberg`s pace increased steadily throughout the Leg, and he set a string of increasingly competitive times before a split brake pipe forced him to ease off on two stages in the afternoon.
Petter will start tomorrow`s final day of competition 39sec behind Markko Martin`s third place. Chris Atkinson impressed many with his pace on today`s notoriously tricky stages. On his WRC class debut in Finland, the youngster traded times with far more experienced drivers and, on SS13, he set the third fastest time.
Chris`s day was cut short when he went off the road on the penultimate test of the day, but he hopes to re-join the event tomorrow as a Superally entrant.
Petter Solberg
"It was good to see the car look like new again after all the work the team did last night. But today was so difficult as we`ve been looking for the right set up for the conditions. Sometimes that`s just how it is. Just before the long stage today we tried some damper changes to get more traction, but I found that it made the car slide so much and we lost a lot of grip. Then, on the last stage, we tried some new changes and that was so much better. I think we`ll keep the same setting for tomorrow. We`ll keep trying with the four stages left, but it`s a short day and the aim is to keep winning the fight for fourth."
Chris Atkinson
"Today was one of the best days rallying I can remember. To come to Finland and consistently match times with the top drivers was just fantastic. Everything has been working so well all day, the car, the tyres and overall package. It was a shame such a small mistake cut short a great day, but we just got caught out when we got stuck in a rut coming out of a corner and then hit a bump with the car tipping over into a ditch just off the road on the second last stage. To be fast in the long term we need to be quick and you have to risk the odd mistake. The crowd got us back on the road after a few minutes, but we didn`t want to press on in case we damaged the engine. Hopefully we`ll be back out with the car again tomorrow."
David Lapworth, Team Principal
"On the surface of it, a frustrating day. Petter has spent some time finding a set-up that suited him, giving him that extra confidence to attack. He was then hampered by a fractured brake pipe on the second loop of today`s stages. Chris was setting some very encouraging stage times, running as high as third which is impressive for someone with so little experience. He then had a typically Finnish accident rolling the car on the rally`s longest test. We`ll have to see whether we can get him back going again for tomorrow, as there is valuable experience to be had and for Petter we`ll keep pushing all the way to the end."
The third and final Leg of Rally Finland starts from Jyväskylä at 0900hrs. Including four more timed tests and 66 competitive kilometres, Sunday`s route takes crews to two more classic gravel stages to the west of Rally HQ, which are repeated in the afternoon.


Tags: finland, subaru, peter-solberg, jump, gravel,