Hirvonen opted for a cautious approach on day 2, conscious that he needs to get to the finish and score at least 3 points in order to sow up the manufacturers’ crown for the
BP Ford WRT. He conceded though that this didnt make things easy and that he was struggling to find a good rhythm as he was going too steady.
Petter Solberg consequently slashed the gap to Mikko from 26 seconds overnight to just 12.6 heading into service E. In the afternoon though ‘Hollywood’ was unable to make any more inroads and actually slipped back a bit, now 15.6 seconds adrift in his Impreza.
Further down the order, Guy Wilks continues to go extremely well in his privately entered
Subaru Impreza and is currently in P6. The Englishman set top ten times in all but one stage today, to add to the eight he managed on leg 1. The Brit is currently on course to score his first ever ‘senior’ WRC points and with a big gap to Petter in front in fifth and an equally big gap back to seventh, he now just needs to keep it on the road and bring his car home.
Fellow countryman,
Matthew Wilson is also on course to get some points. Wilson Jr finished the day seventh overall, while Gareth MacHale rounds out the provisional points’ scorers’ in eighth, also in a Ford Focus RS WRC.
Of the rest, Andreas Mikkelsen is ninth, while Armindo Araujo completes the top ten in his Mitsubishi Evo.
Araujo inherited the lead in the
FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category in the final stage, when Mark Higgins rolled out. Higgins, who needed to win to keep his hopes of taking the PWRC crown alive, had led practically throughout and was more than 30 seconds up on Araujo prior to his off.
Niall McShea is second in the PWRC category, 26.4 seconds off the lead, with Gabriel Pozzo third, Nasser Al-Attiyah fourth and Simone Campedelli fifth. Pozzo is now the only man between Toshi Arai and his second PWRC title. Pozzo needs to finish at least second though to remain in the running. Arai is not competing this weekend in Ireland, as he has already taken in his six nominated events.
