Written by Evan Rothman
Over the afternoon loop of stages for the WRC Wales Rally GB, the Sebastien Loeb (Citroen Total C4 WRC) versus Petter Solberg (Citroen C4 WRC) battle gained even more momentum as the two drivers were locked in a ding-dong fight for the overall lead.
Through SS12, Solberg made a mistake to run wide into a corner and dropping a handful of seconds. This allowed Loeb to stretch his lead to 3.8sec.
Ford’s leading driver Mikko Hirvonen was increasingly coming under pressure from his team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, but both were well over a minute behind the Loeb vs Solberg fight. At the end of Day Two, Hirvonen is a slender 9.3sec ahead of the hard-charging Latvala who is fighting back from a puncture on Day One.
Saturday’s stages were not kind to Ken Block (Monster World Rally Team Ford Focus RS WRC) and Kimi Raikkonen (Red Bull Citroen Junior Team C4 WRC), as they both suffered mechanical gremlins this afternoon to drop valuable time.
In SS13, Loeb managed to pull out 0.2sec out from Solberg but the Norwegian ace didn’t give in. All leading crews reported that conditions through the afternoon stages were not only slippery but also treacherous. This is what rally drivers have come to expect from this iconic event.
These conditions didn’t stop Loeb from increasing his lead to 6.7sec over Solberg after SS14, as Solberg spun his car in the stage. In fact, Solberg only lost 2.7sec to Loeb (the stage winner) and this highlighted Solberg’s electrifying pace.
Petter “Hollywood” Solberg grabbed the bull by the horns in SS15 to set the fastest stage time, and closed the gap to Loeb to 4.6sec after 281.6km of rallying.
Through the day’s final 1.7km making up the Cardiff Bay Spectator Super Special Stage, the final of the day, the overall standings remained unchanged.
Overall Standings after SS16:
01) S. Loeb – 2h 32m 24.0s
02) P. Solberg + 4.8s
03) M. Hirvonen + 1m 28.0s
04) J-M. Latvala + 1m 36.6s
05) D. Sordo + 1m 52.0s
06) H. Solberg + 5m 01.4s
07) M. Wilson + 6m 49.5s
08) K. Raikkonen + 8m 30.9s
09) M. Ostberg + 11m 02.3s
10) A. Mikkelsen + 11m 04.4s