SS11: Solberg shines to snatch second

Petter Solberg has shot ahead of Dani Sordo in the battle for second place on Rallye Monte-Carlo with a sensational performance through Friday’s opening stage.

Solberg, in a Ford World Rally Team Fiesta RS WRC, completed the run in a time of 12m08.6s to pull 9.5s clear of the Spaniard in the overall standings.

Meanwhile Sordo, in a MINI John Cooper Works WRC, was fifth fastest, taking 12m21.8s to tackle the run, which was reported to be extremely slippery due to rain.

With a lead of more than 1m30s starting day three, eight-time world champion Sebastien Loeb could afford to adopt a slightly more cautious approach in his Citroen DS3 WRC. However, he put his time, which was 16.7s slower than the flying Solberg, down to his decision to use studded tyres at the rear and slick tyres at the front in preparation for stage 12, which is understood to be coated in snow and ice in parts when he will be able to bolt on his two spare studded tyres at the front in an effort to achieve maximum grip.

“I expected to lose much more time because I had two studs and two slicks,” Loeb told World Rally Radio. “But for the next one where the is more ice I have full studs but even with this choice I will have to be very careful.”

Evgeny Novikov, driving an M-Sport Fiesta, continues to impress on his Rallye Monte-Carlo debut. The Russian set the third fastest time, 8.5s slower than Norwegian Solberg.

Another standout performance came from French legend Francois Delecour, whose time in a privateer Fiesta was 3.3s off Solberg’s stage best. Estonian youngster Ott Tanak also shone by going fourth quickest in his M-Sport Fiesta, 11.2s slower that the fastest time.