Rally Sweden: Day 1 Update

[… BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team driver Khalid Al Qassimi became the
first WRC driver to hit problems, nosing his Ford Focus RS WRC into a
snow bank 16.7km from the start line. The car was undamaged, and after
spectators had got him going again he rejoined – right in front of Kimi
Raikkonen who was following him though. The Finn completed the stage
hanging off the tail of Al Qassimi’s car, in a time 56sec slower than
Loeb’s.

[… After losing time tailing Al Qassimi through the previous
stage, Kimi Raikkonen’s clear run through Viggen gave a better
indication of his pace relative to the other drivers. He completed the
stage in the 11th fastest time, 7.9sec quicker than Al Qassimi and
0.7sec off the pace of Stobart team driver Matthew Wilson. ….]

[… Briton Matthew Wilson completed the top 10 places with Kimi
Raikkonen 29.2sec further back in 11th. After service, crews will repeat
the morning loop of stages before driving south to Karlstad for a
second attempt at the Super Special Stage….]

Upcoming stages after service will be updated here later. Follow on WRC’s live radio stream.

Sources: Autosport.com
| WRC.com

SS5 – Likenäs2:
Hirvonen fights back as crews reach Friday’s
midpoint

[… The problems ahead have moved Kimi Raikkonen (Citroen Junior) up to
10th among the WRC entrants, although he is 11th overall behind S2000
class leader P-G Andersson’s Skoda. …]

SS6: Big
problems for Gronholm and Raikkonen

Finnish superstars Marcus Gronholm and Kimi Raikkonen both suffered
serious setbacks on the sixth stage of Rally Sweden, with Gronholm
losing 12 minutes because of a technical problem and Raikkonen getting
stuck in a snow bank for 25 minutes.

Gronholm was first to hit trouble, 2.3km from the start line, when his
Stobart Team Ford Focus was brought to a halt by a suspected electrical
fault. The Finn managed to get going again and complete the stage, but a
stage time 12 minutes slower than SS6 winner Jari-Matti Latvala’s
dropped him from sixth to 30th place.

Raikkonen’s problems occurred later in the stage, just a couple of
kilometres before the finish, when he drove his Citroen Junior Team C4
WRC into a snow bank and got stuck. Like Gronholm he eventually managed
to get going again, but the incident meant he completed the stage more
than 26 minutes slower than Latvala. The Finn, who was 10th overall on
SS5, dropped out of the top 30.

Finns Marcus Gronholm and Kimi Raikkonen lost the most time today,
Gronholm with an electrical problem on SS5, and Raikkonen stuck in a
snow bank on the same stage. Both drivers re-joined the rally but both
are outside the top 30.

Hirvonen leads into day 2

Mikko Hirvonen will take a six-second lead over Sebastien Loeb into
day two of the Rally Sweden.

The world champion trimmed a couple of seconds from Hirvonen’s
advantage by winning the Karlstad superspecial that ended today’s action
– although Hirvonen had already pledged to take things very carefully
on the short stage as he expected the road conditions to be poor as it
had already been used by the whole field yesterday evening. Sure enough,
the top drivers’ times were all three or more seconds down on last
night’s pace.

Petter Solberg, Gronholm and Kimi Raikkonen are all still running
outside the top ten after their problems earlier today, with Raikkonen’s
crash leaving him 47th at present, half an hour behind the leaders.

Pos  Driver              Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford     1h08m04.8s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen      + 6.2s
 3.  Dani Sordo          Citroen     + 10.6s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford        + 31.7s
 5.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen   + 1m10.9s
 6.  Henning Solberg     Ford      + 2m16.2s
 7.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru    + 3m20.2s
 8.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 3m21.1s
 9.  P-G Andersson       Skoda     + 4m16.1s
10.  Janne Tuohino       Ford      + 5m15.3s

(view full results)