Urmo Aava completes the top five in his privately entered
Citroen C4 WRC car, a minute or so off Atkinson and nearly two minutes up on
Matthew Wilson. The Estonian has had a very respectable run and was fifth fastest in both SS12 and SS16.
Wilson had a solid day too and still leads the way for the
Stobart Ford outfit, although
Henning Solberg is now breathing down his neck and is only 14.4 seconds adrift in the sister car.
Henning was a lot happier with his Focus on day 2 and set his best time of the event in the final stage of the day, when he was third quickest.
"Today felt much better than yesterday especially on the second pass of the stages. My times were much faster on the afternoon loop as we made a few small changes in service and they helped to give me more confidence," explained the Norwegian.
"I managed to get some time back on Matthew today and it looks like we have a bit of a race tomorrow."
Of the rest, Munchi’s Ford man
Federico Villagra is poised to take eighth and score a drivers’ point for the third event in succession, while Khalid Al-Qassimi is ninth, 14.2 seconds further back in the 'third'
BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT car.
SupeRally re-starter
Gigi Galli completes the top ten, having gone out in SS6 on Friday, when he hit a stone-bank. The Italian has made good progress after starting the day outside the top 30 and he finished the day with three fastest times in succession, a good indication of what might have been.
Per-Gunnar Andersson,
Petter Solberg and
Conrad Rautenbach also all rejoined on day 2.
P-G ended proceedings in 43rd place, having missed all of Friday's action after going off in SS1. He posted seven top ten times, his best a sixth best effort in SS15.
Solberg crashed out in the final stage of the day, when he slid off the road heavily under braking, 5.3 kilometres into the test.
"We had so much go wrong today," said ‘Hollywood’. "We knew we had a brake caliper leaking, and in the last stage I braked and the car just didn’t slow down enough. It’s so, so frustrating and just boring.
"I want to be able to push and drive properly but we just haven’t been able to this weekend."
Rautenbach of course retired earlier on after
that incident with Loeb and while he apologised, he maintained it was an accident.
