Written by Evan Rothman
A morning’s intense rally action in Wales sees the mighty duo of Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen Total World Rally Team) top the timesheets once more. Day Two’s morning loop of stages for WRC Wales Rally GB, however, have not been as clear-cut as this as the lead has changed twice.
It emerged last night that Petter Solberg/Chris Patterson (Petter Solberg World Rally Team) suffered gearbox problems on Day One to hamper their overall speed. The Norwegian ace picked up where he left off last night to charge to the top of the leaderboard after SS9, demoting Loeb to second place.
Loeb’s team-mate, the young Sebastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia, crashed heavily out of the rally in this opening speed test. The crew is uninjured, but their Citroen C4 WRC has been severely damaged and is unlikely to restart under SupeRally regulations tomorrow.
In true “The Loeb Show” fashion, the seven-times World Rally Champion struck back at Solberg to blitz through SS10 to retake the overall lead and open up a 5.3sec lead.
A harmless spin in SS11 saw Loeb lose a handful of seconds to the hard-charging Solberg, with a true battle set for this afternoon’s stages as Loeb and Solberg fight over the 2.5sec margin separating them from each other.
Day Two’s four morning stages will be repeated thjis afternoon and today’s action will close out with a run of the Cardiff Bay Spectator Super Special Stage this evening.
Overall Standings after SS11:
01) S. Loeb – 1h 53m 17.3s
02) P. Solberg + 2.5s
03) M. Hirvonen + 1m 2.5s
04) J-M. Latvala + 1m 13.7s
05) D. Sordo + 1m 20.1s
06) H. Solberg + 3m 51.3s
07) M. Wilson + 4m 55.1s
08) M. Ostberg + 5m 26.5s
09) K. Raikkonen + 6m 28.9s
10) K. Block + 7m 50.9s