Chris has held the position throughout and while he did lose out in SS10 and SS11, going into service F just 10.1 seconds in front, he put in a big push this afternoon. Indeed the
Subaru man was second quickest in SS12 and then set the top time in SS13. Although he was 1 slower in the final stage, he finished proceedings with a 20.1 second lead.
Further down the order,
Petter Solberg is a distant fifth - almost a minute off the battle for third in his Impreza. He slipped further and further behind Chris and Duval during day 3 and had no real explanation for why he was unable to match his team-mate.
Gigi Galli finished day 3 in P6 and he is continuing to gain confidence with the Focus RS WRC07 on his debut with the
Stobart squad.
Peugeot privateer, Jean-Marie Cuoq and P-G Andersson round out the provisional points' scorers in seventh and eighth respectively. P-G had a good morning in his SX4 WRC and set some very quick times, including a fifth fastest effort in SS9.
He continued to set top ten stage times in the afternoon as well and now looks poised to score the first ever point with the all-new
Suzuki World Rally Car.
Toni Gardemeister also set a number of top ten times in the sister SX4, his best a sixth quickest time in SS13. He was slowed by technical issues though and complained of transmission problems after SS11.
He was also worried about his engine overheating in SS14 and when he returned to service his mechanics were unable to find the cause of the problem. As a result the car was subsequently retired from 10th in order to prevent further engine damage.
Of the rest
Henning Solberg ended up in ninth with fellow Stobart runner,
Matthew Wilson tenth.
Henning didn't have a very good day though and freely admitted that he was glad it was over: "It was tough," noted the Norwegian post-SS10, "I scared the crap out of myself!"
