HIRVONEN LEADS OPENING ROUND OF WRC IN SWEDEN
2010-02-16 00:28:07 Author: admin Source:
Saturday, 13 February 2010, WRC, Sweden: The Rally of Sweden kicked off the 2010 World Rally Championship (WRC) earnestly this weekend, pitting WRC veterans and the usual suspects in World Rally competition. At the end of day two's affair, 2009 WRC runner-up Ford's Mikko Hirvonen managed to extend his lead from day one yesterday after a blistering performance in the frozen Scandinavian forests.
The Finn managed the tyre strategy to perfection on a Focus RS World Rally Car to build a 16.6sec lead with just one day remaining of this first round of the WRC. Hirvonen's team mate and compatriot Jari-Matti Latvala also enjoyed a good rallying day, climbing to third in a similar Focus RS. Ford's second Finnish driver will start tomorrow's final leg with a 54.8sec advantage over fourth-placed Citroen's Dani Sordo.
The thrilling battle for supremacy at the head of the leaderboard continued unabated as Hirvonen fought to extend his lead. Such was the intensity of the duel that after the opening loop of 58.88km of flat-out driving in the ice-bound forests, the Finn's rival and last season's WRC champion Sébastien Loeb cut the 6.2sec overnight advantage to a slender margin of 2.0sec. But, Hirvonen was fastest on the opening Vargåsen special stage and the pace of the two protagonists left the battle delicately poised.
The same roads were repeated later on day two's itinerary and as the snowy surface deteriorated to expose the gravel beneath, tyre management played a crucial part. Hirvonen fitted new rubber to the front of his car before the Sågen test, the second of the loop. He blitzed Loeb by eight seconds and gained a further eight on the following Fredriksberg stage to widen his advantage to 23.0sec.
Hirvonen's big attack on the gravel meant his tyres had lost many of the tungsten-tipped studs that bite into the ice ahead of the final test, but at only 1.87km he limited the time loss to 6.4sec to end the day with a significant lead.
In the Citroen camp, after 243 timed kilometres, Loeb is placed second and 16’’6 behind the Ford driver with a slim opportunity to overtake the hungry Finn on the final day of the event. However, the Citroën World Rally team are still optimistic to run for victory, and the outcome of the rally will be decided tomorrow in the last leg.
Loeb commented, "“You really have to work hard for each second. Overall, Mikko (Hirvonen) is quicker in the twisty specials but I manage to catch him in the quicker ones. In the end, the gap is fairly stable. I really want to win this rally and I’m going to keep pushing hard. The road will have changed a lot after all the cars have been through.”
"We’ll see what happens tomorrow, the road conditions will determine the outcome. The gap’s beginning to open up, but I’ll do everything in my power to go for the win,” he added.
Team mate Dani Sordo was slowed by various problems and is currently lying fourth in the rally Sweden classifications. Sordo was third after the first loop more than 30 seconds behind the leader, but the Spaniard lost seconds in the Fredriksberg stage and he spun his C4, losing his car's rear wing and eventually his third place overall.
The Stobart Ford Rally Team enjoyed highs and lows on the second full day of Rally Sweden. The team boast a line-up of experienced rally campaigners for the 2010 season with returning drivers Matthew Wilson (above left) and Henning Solberg (above right) at the helm as well as the addition of the 2-time WRC champion, Marcus Grönholm.
The second day's opening loop of four stages started well, with Grönholm(above) demonstrating his ability as he went second-fastest on the 14.23km SS20 Sagen.Meanwhile, Solberg and Wilson both enjoyed relatively trouble-free stages and posted competitive times that kept them in the points.
Grönholm was clearly finding a good rhythm as he followed his showing on Sagen by going fourth-quickest on the 18.15km SS11 Fredriksberg immediately after it. That meant he was clawing back much of the time he had lost the previous day, but frustratingly his charge was derailed once again when he suffered a puncture on the opening stage of the second loop, SS13 Vargasen. Having changed the tyre, Grönholm got going again, but had lost another hefty chunk of time that effectively ended his chances of a comeback. But, the former WRC champ did not give up and even claimed a stage win on his favoured test by one second from overall leader, Mikko Hirvonen.
Team-mate Matthew Wilson had followed suit and went sixth-fastest, widening the gap between himself and Mads Ostberg behind him in eighth to over 20 seconds. Solberg opted not to change his tyres prior to the stage and it cost him, with the Norwegian only managing 13th-fastest through the test.
Going deeper into the second day's test, Solberg and Wilson managed to pick their way cautiously through the stage eighth and tenth-fastest, but Grönholm was less lucky. He overshot a junction and hit a snow bank, ripping off his car's light pod and pushing a lot of snow into the air intakes. He managed to complete the stage but had to drive carefully to avoid any further damage. In the last stage at SS16, Solberg finished the day sixth overall, Wilson seventh and Grönholm in 29th.
The final day of Rally Sweden tomorrow will see crews cover 101.05km of stage distance over five tests, the shortest day of the event. The majority of the route has been used in previous editions of Rally Sweden, and crews who have been over it before will be hoping to take advantage of familiar territory to take a strong finish from the first WRC round of the year.
Results
1. Hirvonen (Ford) 2:14.48'
2. Loeb (Citroën) +16’.6
3. Latvala (Ford) +51.4
4. Sordo (Citroën) +1’46.2
5. Ogier (Citroën) +2'42.1
6. H. Solberg (Ford) +3'47.9
7. Wilson (Ford) +5'44.1
8. Östberg (Subaru) +5’57.3
9. Solberg (Citroën) +8’35.2
10. Andersson (Skoda) +8’48
