SS22: Puncture blows for Latvala and Solberg

The battle for Rally Sweden victory dramatically came alive again three stages from the end as Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg both picked up tyre damage on their works Ford Fiesta RS WRCs.

Latvala had charged into a 35-second lead over Mikko Hirvonen this morning, but saw that gap slashed to 8.4s with two stages remaining after hitting a rock on Lesjofors.

"There is a rock I’ve never, ever seen on this stage," said Latvala. "It’s just come through the ruts on the big wide road. I only felt it when I hit it."

Though he still thinks his lead will be sufficient, Latvala admitted he was now under a lot of pressure.

"Now we need to push," he said. "It should be quite okay still. I have to go flat-out."

Fellow factory Ford driver Solberg suffered exactly the same problem on the stage, losing half a minute and handing third place to weekend-long sparring partner Mads Ostberg.

"There’s just a lot of rocks out there. I touched one and that’s it. Very disappointing," said Solberg.

Ostberg had been surprised to see Solberg losing time on the splits, having felt he was taking it easy on this stage. Yet he ended up quickest of all, and is now 25s in front of Solberg.

"I was quite careful there trying to save my tyres for the next stage, so if I can take some time on this stage I’m very happy with that," said Ostberg, before learning of Solberg’s puncture.

Behind them, Sebastien Loeb took nine seconds out of fifth-placed Evgeny Novikov, but the Russian said he had it all under control.

"Everything is okay, I’m not pushing at all and trying to save the tyres," said Novikov, who is still just over half a minute in front of the Citroen. "I will push on the Power Stage."

But the stage saw more misery for Novikov’s M-Sport Ford team-mate Ott Tanak, as the Estonian parked at the side of the stage with apparent mechanical problems.