SS12: Stall hampers Solberg

Jari-Matti Latvala pulled a little further away from Mikko Hirvonen in the Rally Sweden lead battle on stage 12, while Mads Ostberg edged slightly closer to Petter Solberg in their fight for third after the works Ford driver stalled at the stage start.

Latvala (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) was quickest on the stage, adding 0.9 seconds to his lead over Citroen driver Hirvonen, which made the gap 19.9s with two stages to go before service. The leader put his pace down to a more intelligent approach to the stage.

"I remember in the past I have pushed really, really hard on this stage and gone wide into the snow banks, so I tried to be more clever this time," Latvala said.

Hirvonen is confident his Citroen DS3 WRC is quick enough to close Latvala down as he gets ever more comfortable in it.

"I’m very happy with the car, it just needs a little more speed from myself to be able to fight Jari-Matti," he said.

Solberg’s lead over Ostberg in the battle for third came down by 0.6s to 8.2s after Solberg stalled at the start - although he recovered several of the lost seconds with a charge through the stage.

"I didn’t get in a proper rhythm because I stalled on the startline, so I lost a lot of time there at the start," said Solberg.

Ostberg was third quickest, despite being uneasy with the Adapta Ford’s handling as his earlier puncture in service has left him running with what should be a right-side tyre on his left rear.

After setting the fourth fastest time, Evgeny Novikov declared that he was pushing hard with an eye on the recovering Sebastien Loeb, who is two places behind him in seventh. But a quick spin for Loeb on the stage took a little pressure off both Novikov and sixth-placed Henning Solberg.

There was bad news for another Ford driver, though, as Ott Tanak’s brilliant third fastest time on stage 11 was followed by 21 minutes stuck in a ditch after a mistake on this stage.