Wilcock backs Sordo for podium push

Prodrive WRC Team boss Dave Wilcock has backed Dani Sordo for a podium finish on Rallye de France Alsace, despite a somewhat troubled opening day leaving the Spaniard 16s shy of third place on round 11 of the FIA World Rally Championship.

Sordo, back in action in a Prodrive MINI John Cooper Works WRC, is fifth overall after eight stages due to a brake glitch blighting his bid to run further up the order. But with 190 kilometres of competitive running on today’s schedule, Wilcock has high hopes for the former Junior world champion.

“We were hoping to be in a podium position going into day two, but we are a little off the pace we expected, even with the disadvantage of running ninth on the road,” said Wilcock. “Still Dani is just 16 seconds off third and we know both he and the car have the speed to close that gap over the 190 kilometres of stages tomorrow.”

At the completion of Friday’s action south of the event base in Strasbourg, Sordo said: “The tyre choice today was good this morning, maybe we could have taken two soft, but this afternoon we have some problems with the brakes and we lost a bit of time with the others. The brake was going a little long, but I think the mechanics will fix it and then tomorrow we target the podium.”