Australia : Subaru World Rally Team
Subaru World Rally Team driver Petter Solberg holds the overnight lead of Rally Australia tonight after a trouble-free run on the first Leg of the competition. He set top five times throughout the day and won three stages. With two days of the rally remaining Solberg lies more than 45secs ahead of second-placed Francois Duval.
In front of his home crowd Subaru`s young gun Chris Atkinson showed his star potential by taking four stage wins and taking the lead of the event in the morning. Unfortunately Chris`s run of success was interrupted by a damaged steering arm on SS6 but with his car back to full strength he mounted a spirited recovery on the latter stages and is looking to make more progress back up the leaderboard over the coming days.

Petter Solberg
“It`s been great fun out there today, better than I expected actually, the car and tyres have been perfect and I`m really enjoying myself. In Japan we saw how much of a step we`d made on gravel and today it`s felt good to be fighting for the lead again - that`s what we`re here for. Running second on the road today there was lots of loose gravel about and it was extremely slippery and easy to make a mistake and spin. We pushed where we could, but the main objective was to get through cleanly and get a better road position for tomorrow`s Leg. We`ve done that now and I think we`ll be able to enjoy ourselves over the next couple of days!”

Chris Atkinson
“We`ve certainly had some highs and some lows today. Things started perfectly, the car felt just right and Glenn and I were feeling pretty happy at the regroup after SS5, but on the next stage all the good work was undone by the damaged steering arm. It was especially disappointing in front of a home crowd, but there wasn`t anything Glenn or I could do to fix it before service. Since then we`ve been right back on the pace and I`m determined to make as much of the next couple of days as I can. We`ve seen today that a lot can happen on these roads, they`re great fun to drive but they always seem to bring a few surprises, so who knows what place we can get back to? We`re back up to 100 percent and the car seems to suit the conditions perfectly, we`ll do the best we can.”

David Lapworth, Team Principal
“Chris got off to a great start and more than fulfilled the expectations of his Australian supporters and the team by setting fastest stage times and taking the lead of the rally. It seems he was very unlucky with the bent steering but he seems to have got over it quickly and has continued to set a cracking pace. It`s going to be difficult for him to regain one of the podium places but he still has a chance to show what might have been and his potential for the future. Petter`s obviously had a great day as well, his confidence before the rally seems justified and he is content with his pace - even before Sébastien`s retirement. Now the only real pressure on him is to continue to have a clean run over the next two days.”

Leg two of Rally Australia features nine stages and 122.34 competitive kilometres to the south east of Perth. The morning Bannister stages are run through a privately owned pine plantation and on routes made for logging and, as a result, are very soft and well-known for rutting quite quickly. The main features of the stages are the famous Bunnings jumps and water splash at the finish. After a service in Perth crews return to the Beraking and Flynns stage to the east of Perth before two runs through the Superspecial in the evening.

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