Wales Rally GB – (11-14 November 2010) – Day 3
Thanks to the points scored by Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo, who were fifth at the end of the RallyGreat Britain, and by Kimi Räikkönen and Kaj Lindström, who finished eighth, the Citroën JuniorTeam has claimed third in the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers, which was won by theCitroën Total World Rally Team*.
The final day of the Rally Great Britain, which was made up of four special stages totalling 76.14competitive kilometres, did not witness any dramatic changes to the leaderboard.
Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo were fifth on the road today and hung onto their overall placingthroughout the final leg of the rally, which took place between Cardiff and Swansea. The Spanish crewset two fifth-fastest times during the opening loop of stages but changed their car’s set-up for the secondrun over the loop. Dani was third-quickest in Resolfen before going fastest of all in Margam Park. “Wetried out a few new things,” he said. “I preferred how the car was after we had done that as I felt moreconfident. Myself and Diego said to ourselves that we would push hard on the last stage to set the finalfastest time of the season and that’s exactly how it worked out!”
“It was a really difficult rally,” added the Spanish driver. “The roads were very slippery with severalchanges in the levels of grip. I tried to keep up with the frontrunners but I lost a bit of time on theopening day. Afterwards I aimed to close the gap a bit but I always ended up fifth at the end of everystage.”
“I wanted to do a bit better in order to finish the year on a real high, but it was hard to take any morerisks on roads that were as slippery as these ones,” added Dani. “There were so many traps that youcould fall into everywhere.”
Kimi Räikkönen and Kaj Lindström had a slightly more troubled start to the day because of an electronicproblem in the gearshift command at the end of Margam Park 1 (SS18). Apart from this small setback,the Finn was able to continue making progress. “The stages are as difficult as ever,” he said. “Eventhough the conditions are slightly better today, the roads are still extremely slippery.”
By ending the rally in eighth position, Kimi racked up his fifth points finish of the year. “We wereexpecting this to be a tricky season,” he said. “I made some mistakes but I also learned a lot this year andI had fun driving the Citroën C4 WRC. I would like to carry on: this is my preferred option for 2011.”
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