Final push for Hänninen

Juho Hänninen made a determined push to consolidate his lead in the RACMSA Rally of Scotland, setting fastest time on the penultimate stage in his Škoda Motorsport Fabia S2000. 10m8.3s on the second loop around the 15.95km Clashmore stage brought him to 19.8s ahead of Andreas Mikkelsen´s M-Sport Fiesta in the overall standings.

"I charged a little bit to make the position safe," said Hänninen. "I’m going to be a little bit more careful now and try not to make stupid mistakes."

"I’m pushing quite a bit, but not really really hard," said Mikkelsen, who set the fourth fastest time. "To catch up I’d have to take a lot of risks."

Guy Wilks was just 0.8s slower than Hänninen in the Škoda UK Fabia. "The drizzle has made the stage greasy in places," he said. "This morning the grip was so good you almost couldn’t believe it, but now it’s wet it’s a lot slower. The tyres are doing well. We’re having to cut them and be a little bit tactical because the road conditions are sort of between compounds."

Kris Meeke’s Peugeot UK 207 arrived at the end of the stage trailing a piece of bodywork. "I don’t even know where it happened, we tried to tape it up before we left service but it just came loose," he said. "There was a problem with an engine sensor, so it was taking too much fuel and putting it into the exhaust and we were losing about 10bhp. We’re aiming to consolidate third place now."

Alister McRae, who restarted the rally in his Proton Satria this morning, was fifth quickest, while team-mate Tom Cave went seventh to consolidate his top ten position overall.

"We had a big moment about half way through the stage and the car almost got sucked into the ditch," said Cave. "I’m going to back off and try to get through the next stage because the conditions are so unpredictable now."

The Group N battle seems to have been decided in favour of Jonathan Greer. Both the leading Evo IXs have encountered mechanical troubles but Bogie’s car has suffered the worst so far.

"The exhaust has broken and we’re still having problems with the rear dampers bouncing around," said Bogie. "The transmission’s crashing a bit as well so we’re just going to have to limp her home."

"The brake pedal feels a lot better after we looked at the brakes in service but still not 100 per cent," said Greer. "There’s just one stage to go but it’s quite a long one so we’ll have to keep our concentration up."

Overall positions after SS11:

Stages 9 & 11 Clashmore

The first of two stages in the Trossachs region. The action of Day 2 is very condensed where stamina and concentration will be tested. Clashmore is a new stage, replacing Achray, and is is a cracker. It’s 16km in length and more of a technical challenge than Achray. The start is very narrow with off-camber corners before joining a new forest road that takes in part of the Loch Ard stage. The final two-thirds are very fast and the committed driver will make the most of this test.

Guy Wilks says: “Given how demanding the other stages are, I’m really looking forward to driving Clashmore for the first time – which is new for this year’s Rally of Scotland. I’ve heard that it’s quite technical, narrow in places with off-camber corners and very fast towards the end. It should be a great addition to the rally.”