Tour de Corse : Subaru World Rally Team
After today`s second Leg of the Tour de Corse, Petter Solberg holds third place overall, with one full day of competition remaining. All three of the Subaru World Rally Team`s cars ran faultlessly and Solberg finished in the top three in three of the day`s four stages.
Stéphane Sarrazin holds fifth place overnight after setting a consistently rapid pace throughout the day, while Chris Atkinson`s speed on the unfamiliar event improved steadily. The Australian, who restarted this morning under Superally regulations, bettered his morning times by over 15secs in the afternoon repeats.
Petter Solberg
“I must say, I`m happy with what we`ve done today. It`s been better than I expected actually. The car and the tyres are working very well in these conditions and I think the development work that we`ve done recently is a massive step forward. We haven`t had any problems to report, apart from the near miss with a pig on the first stage, and I hope we can have another trouble free run tomorrow.”

Stéphane Sarrazin
“Yes, it was good, not fantastic, but we struggled a bit with too much understeer for my liking. But to be fifth overall is not bad and there are still another 95 kilometres to go tomorrow. I liked the roads today, they were very exciting, and tomorrow I hope to be able to push a bit harder. Everything can happen over the remaining four stages, I will push to the maximum.”

Chris Atkinson
“After our departure from the rally yesterday, today has almost been a test, and not a bad one at all. I`m happy with the pace that we showed all day, there was steady improvement in our times and it`s encouraging to see the progress on the time sheets. We`ve gathered a lot of feedback from the car, especially on how it reacts in different situations. There are so many surface changes on this event that we`ve been finding our way a bit. We made a few little mistakes, but we`re learning more all the time and it`s definitely going to help us when we come back here again.”

David Lapworth, Team Principal
“It`s been a good day and we still have every chance of achieving our podium target. We knew that Sébastien would be fast on this rally, but we have to be pleased with our performance against our other rivals. Petter maintained his pace throughout the day and hasn`t put a foot wrong. Likewise, Stéphane is trading times with some of the world`s top drivers and it`s easy to forget his relative inexperience. It is good to see Chris already well on course to achieve his improvement targets. His learning curve is impressively steep."

Crews leave parc fermé in the port of Ajaccio from 0700hrs for a 10 minute service before departing for the mountains to the south east of the capital. Leg three is the shortest of the rally, comprising just over 95 competitive kilometres and features two loops of two stages. The Acqua Doria-Serra di Ferro pass is new for 2005 and is also the shortest test, while the Pont de Calzola is one of the fastest of the event as crews reach average speeds of around 100km/h.


Tags: tour-de-corse, corsica, subaru-impreza, wrx, solberg, sarrazin,