Friday midday wrap: Solberg on top

Former world champion Petter Solberg has reached the remote service halt in Kamena Vourla leading the Acropolis Rally by 20.3s.

Amid high ambient temperatures, the Norwegian was fastest on the opening two stages this morning in his privateer Citroen DS3 WRC to hold a comfortable advantage over Ford Fiesta RS WRC driver Jari-Matti Latvala.

“It’s been a good morning, good fun,” said Solberg. “I’m not sure why we got this good time in stage two, I just had a good run and things worked well, the car worked well. I also lost some time in the middle [of stage two] thinking I had a puncture after hitting a rock.”

Asked about his strategy for the remainder of the day, Solberg added: “We have to remember the next stage I can calm down a bit because it’s very rough with the lead I’ve got. You can’t win the rally today and you have to be a bit calculated. I will try to be a bit smart.”

Mikko Hirvonen is third overall in the second works Fiesta with Sebastien Loeb, cleaning the road of the loose surface gravel, in fourth position in his factory DS3. Loeb’s car developed a faulty electronic display, which his team is trying to rectify at the remote service halt.

“We are working on it,” said Loeb. “It is difficult to know and always complicated when it is electronics. There is a lot of gravel on the road and that is a big part of the problem with my performance. The time is not so bad but Petter is very fast. I try to push.”

Team-mate Sebastien Ogier is fifth with Mads Ostberg sixth for the M-Sport Stobart Ford squad. Both drivers have reported a lack of confidence with the handling of their cars on the demanding Greek stages. Ogier also suffered a left-rear puncture on stage two, while Ostberg was further delayed with a spin.

Matthew Wilson was an impressive fourth quickest on stage one despite a problem with his Fiesta’s flat-shift gearchange system, which was cutting his engine for fractionally too long. The Briton also lost time with a half spin on stage two.

Henning Solberg, back on WRC duty after skipping the previous round in Argentina, holds eighth place after two stages. He said: “I’m feeling tired. I’m not in my best form.”

Kimi Raikkonen, in ninth, was also absent in Argentina and on round five in Italy. Back behind the wheel of his Ice 1 Racing DS3 WRC, the Finn said: “The first stage I didn’t drive well at the beginning, I did not have a good feeling, but it improved later on. This one started okay but I thought I had a rear puncture because the rear of the car felt loose. Then I hit a big hole in the road and now the steering is not straight.”

Federico Villagra has dropped down the leaderboard after losing ground on stage two when he reported “bending something” in the rear of the car and suffering a brake problem for the last 18 kilometres.

Evgeny Novikov set a sensational time on stage one, going third quickest in his Fiesta. But broken suspension 28 kilometres into the 39.10-kilometre Elatia test has put him out of the running. Suspension failure has also caused Lambros Athanassoulas to stop 21 kilometres into stage two in his Fiesta.

Armindo Araujo is the leading MINI John Cooper Works WRC driver in 12th.

Ott Tanak heads the Super 2000 World Rally Championship division in ninth overall after Nasser Al-Attiyah, the leader after stage one, had to complete stage two with no working powersteering on his Fiesta. Martin Prokop, joint top of the SWRC standings prior to the start, has dropped chunks of time with a differential problem on his Fiesta. Juho Hanninen is second in class in his Skoda Fabia.

Standings after SS2: