Emilia Romagna GP || May 19 || 15h00 (Local time)

SS5: Champion Hänninen extends lead

But Solberg’s on a charge

By

20 January 2011 - 13:27

Juho Hänninen has continued his impressive start to Rallye Monte-Carlo by going fastest on Thursday’s opening stage, the 23.05-kilometre St Jean en Royans-Font D’Urle test.

The Škoda Fabia driver, the reigning Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion, was 0.2s faster than former world rally title winner Petter Solberg to extend his overall advantage over Freddy Loix to 51.8s after Loix could only manage the seventh-fastest time on the stage.

Solberg is now 3.7s behind Loix heading into stage six despite losing a few seconds with a sticking throttle.

Jan Kopecký has moved ahead of Peugeot UK’s Guy Wilks into fifth after Wilks dropped time with a big slide close to the start of the stage. Wilks also said his car’s damper settings were too stiff.

Pos.	Team	Car	Time
1	HANNINEN Juho/MARKKULA Mikko	Skoda Fabia S2000	1h23m24.4s
2	LOIX Freddy/MICLOTTE Frederic	Skoda Fabia S2000	+51.8s
3	SOLBERG Petter/PATTERSON Chris	Peugeot 207 S2000	+55.5s
4	SARRAZIN Stéphane/RENUCCI Jacques-Julien	Peugeot 207 S2000	+1m02.7s
5	KOPECKY Jan/STARY Petr	Skoda Fabia S2000	+1m32.8s
6	WILKS Guy/PUGH Philip	Peugeot 207 S2000	+1m33.0s
7	BOUFFIER Bryan/PANSERI Xavier	Peugeot 207 S2000	+1m42.8s
8	DELECOUR François/SAVIGNONI Dominique	Peugeot 207 S2000	+2m04.9s
9	VIGION Jean-Sébastien/YVERNAULT Eric	Peugeot 207 S2000	+3m43.5s
10	MAURIN Julien/URAL Olivier	Ford Fiesta S2000	+4m15.4s
11	VOUILLOZ Nicolas/VEILLAS Benjamin	Skoda Fabia S2000	+5m14.7s
12	BETTI Luca/MATTIODA Alessandro	Peugeot 207 S2000	+5m27.6s
13	GARDEMEISTER Toni/TUOMINEN Tomi	Peugeot 207 S2000	+6m13.6s
14	BASSO Giandomenico/DOTTA Mitia	Peugeot 207 S2000	+7m05.5s
15	CAFFI Alex/PEROGLIO Roberto	Skoda Fabia S2000	+7m15.5s