FLASH INFO

Friday 3 August

SS11 Lankamaa 2 23.06 km and some comments at end of the day

Conditions on the stage: There are some black clouds in the sky, which meant some rain after the first few cars. It was dry and windy before the stage started. Safety car comment: ´The stage is in the best condition I´ve ever seen. Even the uphill section that is normally rutted is in a good condition now.´


1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen DS3 WRC)
´I was pushing hard and missed a bit at a junction. It will be a long final day. In our situation we have to fight. We have to do it correctly tomorrow. It will be a hard fight.´

2 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Citroen DS3 WRC)
´There is still time to fight tomorrow and it will be a big fight. We could not get past him (Loeb) yet but little by little we´ll take some time out of him.´

3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´I made one mistake but I´m happy with the stage. We just won´t be faster than Loeb. Hopefully we can come up with something for tomorrow. Overall, I´m disappointed. The car is good but there is something Citroen can do better than us now.´

4 Petter Solberg/Chris Patterson (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
Petter sets the fastest time on SS11. ´The car works well otherwise, but I had a problem with the gear lever on the last five or six kms. We have to go wild in order to succeed. Still a long way to go.´

5 Ott Tänak/Kuldar Sikk (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´It has been difficult, I really missed the pre-event testing. We had a puncture today.´

6 Evgeny Novikov/Denis Giraudet (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
The wind turned a wrong page in the pacenotes and the co-driver was lost for a moment.

8 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Citroen DS3 WRC)
Neuville has gone off on SS11 and will not continue. Having seen a red Citroen out, the Finns who drove after Neuville asked if it was Hirvonen but no.

10 Mads Östberg/Jonas Andersson (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´The car feels better now, but we have a problem with the rear brake pads. Sometimes they keep locking and sometimes not.´

12 Armindo Araújo/Miguel Ramalho (Mini John Cooper Works WRC)
´The stage is cleaner now and there´s a bit more grip.´

15 Martin Prokop/Zdenek Hruza (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´I am trying to go as fast as possible. Some misfire problems. The road conditions are perfect.´

17 Jari Ketomaa/Mika Stenberg (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´The engine started to cut and misfire again. Not as bad as before but hopefully we can fix it at the service. No more problems with the sausages anymore.´

18 Matti Rantanen/Mikko Lukka (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´Still in a battle with Jari (Ketomaa). We try to push, but the time is not good enough. The start was OK but I went a bit wide towards the finish. Maybe the tyres started to become worn out.´

19 Sebastian Lindholm/Timo Hantunen (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´We had a misfire, the engine was cutting out completely. The roads are in perfect condition.´

20 Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Skoda Fabia S2000)
´We have broken our suspension and we have to take it easy now. I saw Neuville: they were out in a slow corner but the drivers are OK.´ Ogier´s suspension should be fixed for tomorrow.

21 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Skoda Fabia S2000)
Mikkelsen lost c. 8 minutes on SS10 when he stopped at a junction. He has to lift his foot off the gas to be able to change the gears up.

32 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Ford Fiesta S2000)
´I accidentally slowed down before the finish line. We just try to do the best we can.´

33 Per-Gunnar Andersson/Emil Axelsson (Proton Satria Neo S2000)
´We tried to play it safe but tomorrow we´ll push.´

34 Juha Salo/Marko Salminen (Proton Satria Neo S2000)
´It is our first rally with this car. We should drive more boldly but our top priority is to finish in a good position.´

35 Maciej Oleksowicz/Andrzej Obrebwski (Ford Fiesta S2000)
´The conditions are really bad. The road is in a bad condition.´

43 Ken Block/Alex Gelsomino (Ford Fiesta RS WRC)
´I´m loving these stages. My engineer called me granny so I had to speed up a bit!´

51 Jarkko Nikara/Petri Nikara (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX)
Took the lead in group N in the middle of today and has been setting good times. He has driven superbly after yesterday´s problems.

52 Jukka Ketomäki/Kai Risberg (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X)
Earlier today the co-driver felt sick and now it´s the driver´s turn. There is also a problem with the transmission but it will be fixed at the service.


53 Riku Tahko/Markus Soininen (Mini John Cooper Works WRC)
´It´s improving. At the last junction I stalled the engine. Aargh, that was a disaster, but what can I do.´

54 Karl Kruuda/Martin Järveoja (Ford Fiesta S2000)
´The morning was not so good but now it´s OK. I took it easy in the middle of the stage where it was a bit rough.´

55 Sander Pärn/Ken Järveoja (Subaru Impreza WRX Sti)
´It went better than yesterday, but I still don´t have enough confidence. I tried to push a little but the rhythm is not so good.´

62 Oleksii Tamrazov/Nicola Arena (Ford Fiesta S2000)
The car arrived at the finish looking like they had rolled it at least once. No comments from the crew.

63 Matias Kauppinen/Jonne Halttunen (Subaru Impreza WRX Sti)
Drove the last two stages with a damaged front wheel.

68 Kristian Yritys/Janne Siirilä (Renault Clio R3)
´We had some brake problems earlier today but we fixed that by changing the brake pads.´

70 Vincent Dubert/Valentin Sarreaud (Citroen DS3 R3T)
´We are very tired today. We had only three hours of sleep last night.´


82 Molly Taylor/Sebastian Marshall (Citroen DS3 R3T)
This is her second time in Finland. She has enjoyed the Finnish roads, especially the tidy sections, and her brand new rally car. She has had a clean drive.

98 Joonas Lindroos/Pasi Kilpeläinen (Citroen C2 R2)
´I´m happy with my performance but on this stage we hit a stone and had to monitor the situation and take it carefully for the rest of the stage. No puncture after all, but we lost some time there.´

101 Christopher Duplessis/Alexander Kihurani (Ford Fiesta R2)
Finished the stage with the tailgate fully open.

106 Brendan Reeves/Rhianon Smyth (Ford Fiesta R2)
´We struggled this morning but made a real effort in the afternoon. The car and I are very good on the fast roads and I now feel confident of a podium position.´

107 Timo van der Marel/Erwin Berkhof (Ford Fiesta R2)
´SS 11 was incredible, but on the first run we broke a beam in the rear suspension.´

108 John MacCrone/Stuart Loudon (Ford Fiesta R2)
´We hit something hard with a front wheel some five kilometres into the stage. It felt like a puncture but the tyre is still inflated so it must be something in the suspension.´
109 Elfyn Evans/Philip Pugh (Ford Fiesta R2)
Is leading the WRC Academy. ´We were able to back off a bit in the afternoon.´

111 João Silva/Hugo Magalhães (Ford Fiesta R2)
´We have bent a front wheel. The stage is very narrow with lots of big stones.´

113 Ashley Haigh-Smith/Craig Parry (Ford Fiesta R2)
´We had a puncture on SS6 and we damaged a brake pipe so we had little or no brakes for the last two stages.

Julkaistu: 3.8.2012 21:00

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