Petter Solberg stopped on SS6 just a few metres away from the flying finish with Engine problems. With the DS3’s engine mis-firing. Petter Solberg and Co-Driver Chris Patterson managed to crawl to the end of the stage.

By D.Darrall

 

Petter Solberg’s very sick sounding Citroen crawled over the stop line, sounded more like a motor boat than a rally car. At stage end he said, “I don’t know I can’t go. That’s bad when we are trying to get a good start to the championship.” Petter was lying in 3rd overall 18.4 seconds down on leader sebastien Loeb

Tried to reset the car in attempt to fix the problem, its suspected to be an electrical problem, similar to that of Ken Blocks problems before the start ramp on Thursday night.　

Ogier was fastest on the stage and has retaken the rally lead from Loeb by just 0.5s, but the younger Frenchman remains at risk of being penalised or even excluded for taking a wrong turning and driving straight into service before the scheduled re-group earlier today.

Mikko Hirvonen is now up to third for Ford, with Brit driver Matthew Wilson in 4th.