Rallye Monte-Carlo stage guide: Day Two

Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson will start day two of Rallye Monte-Carlo, round one of the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge, in third position overall in their Peugeot France 207 Super 2000. Northern Irish co-driver Patterson is your guide to today’s four stages.

SS5 and SS7: St Jean en Royans-Font d’Urle (23.05 kilometres)

“A very fast, very wide and absolutely beautiful stage and, for me, it’s my favourite stage of the whole event. It starts down on a fairly flat plateau and then climbs up to a ski resort where there is a lot of snow at the side of the road at the very top. The surface changes from being fairly uneven to being quite good in places. You’re then in a forest area before a fast descent to the finish.”

SS6 and SS8: Cimetiere de Vassieux-Col de Gaudissart (24.13 kilometres)

“We’ve not done the new section at the start before. You go down six kilometres and you turn left in a small village then you start to climb up and the road gets very narrow, very technical through a forest where you have a completely different surface because there is a lot of new Tarmac and it gets very, very slippery. We climb to the very top and start climbing down hill again. The finish is close to the start of six so the nature of the road, in terms of the conditions, is often quite consistent all the way through and hopefully the tyre choice won’t be too complicated."

“The second run of the stage is at 16:48hrs so you have to think about whether you run spotlights or note. They weigh maybe 20 or 25 kilograms and it’s like having a spare tyre on the front of your car. You can carry the light pod in the back and fit it yourself but the road section is quite short so you don’t have a lot of time.”