Solberg 'pretty' happy with second.

Subaru team leader, Petter Solberg looks set to have to settle for the runners-up spot on the Rally Argentina, after seeing Sebastien Loeb pull out a 40-odd second lead on day two of the event on Saturday.

The Norwegian had been hoping to win after a dismal start to the 2006 season, however he just couldn't match the pace of the Frenchman on the second leg, despite a relatively trouble-free day.

Indeed apart from complaining that he chose the wrong tyres for the first loop, his only real drama came in SS12 when he was delayed slightly when a gear lever arm broke just before a watersplash. He only lost 6-7 seconds to Loeb through the test though as he reverted to the manual gearshift for the remainder of the stage and after the finish made a temporary lever using a locking wrench.

Furthermore while he managed to claw back some time in the afternoon loop and won SS16 and SS17, joint quickest with his brother, Henning in the former, Loeb just paced himself and the gap only came down by around 20 seconds.

Despite that though, 'Hollywood' remained upbeat: "In fact it's been quite a good day, even though it didn't get off to a great start. First we made a bad tyre choice and that cost us a lot of time, and then I reckon we lost another six or seven seconds when the gear lever broke. But this afternoon was actually good and overall I'm pretty happy - we won two stages and our pace is better than the people behind.

"It was nice to share the stage win with Henning too - I don't think two brothers have ever done that before - I heard my mother and father were very happy! Tomorrow the stages are difficult, I know there are lot of bad rocks and anything can happen. The rally isn't over yet - we all have to do those stages first."

Subaru sporting director, Luis Moya meanwhile had mixed feelings and was not best pleased that they couldn't get closer to Loeb - and the pace of the Kronos ran Citroen Xsara.

"Of course I'm a little disappointed because we came here for the victory and it now looks like that target will be difficult to achieve," concluded Moya. "But, on the other hand, we should be pleased with the performance of our cars today. Mechanically, both cars have been very reliable ever since we started the rally. Petter has set some very good times, as well as the stage wins on SS16 and SS17 and Chris [Atkinson] has also improved his pace [in the second car]."