All systems go for Solberg and Mills in Portugal

Petter Solberg’s co-driver Phil Mills insists it’s a case of “all systems go” for Vodafone Rally de Portugal later this month despite the pair’s dramatic late exit from Rally New Zealand.

Solberg and Mills, the 2003 world rally champions, were heading for a podium finish on the Auckland-based event only to crash out on the very last stage of the world championship qualifier.

Their failure to score meant they slipped from second to fifth place in the title standings and triggered concerns that they would not have a car ready for their trip to the Algarve from 27-30 May.

However, Mills allayed those fears by confirming that the Ken Rees-managed Petter Solberg World Rally Team would call up its second Citroen C4 WRC for the Faro contest.

“We’ve got two cars so there are no issues at all on that front,” said Mills. “But the car we had in New Zealand wasn’t that badly damaged any way [despite striking an electricity pylon in the crash].”

Although Mills complained of a stiff neck following the sixth-gear accident on the notorious Whaanga Coast stage, neither he nor Solberg suffered any serious injury and have already come to terms with their heartbreaking exit.

“It’s always frustrating because we could easily have finished in the top three,” said Mills. “But motorsport is high risk and things like that happen. We have no regrets because it was our first big off in four years. Now we’ve just got to get on with the job and there’s no doubt it will be all systems go for Portugal.”

Mills conceded that there is one big positive he and Solberg can take from their New Zealand crash: their fall to fifth in the table means they will start Friday’s stages in Portugal in fifth position on the road, which could be extremely beneficial when road clearing comes into play.

“We had no control of what was going on around us in New Zealand after [Sebastien] Loeb’s problem on the first day,” said Mills. “In Portugal we’ll know what’s going on around us by running further back and we’ll try to slot in wherever suits us for the second day.”