Petter Solberg led the Acropolis Rally last night after scoring five consecutive stage wins and building a 55 second advantage over the rest of the field. Ideally positioned ahead of Legs two and three, Solberg dominated the action on the tough Greek stages and enjoyed a completely trouble free run in his Subaru Impreza WRC2004.
It was also a good day for Subaru's latest young driver signing, Mikko Hirvonen. The 23-year-old recorded some strong stage times, and was third fastest overall on SS6. Although a broken brake pipe cost him almost two minutes early in the day, Hirvonen was quick to put the incident behind him and ended the day in a confident frame of mind.
Petter Solberg"It's not bad. Not bad at all. It's just what I was hoping for and I'm feeling very positive now. I was concentrating so hard on not making any mistakes today, and so far it's worked out very well. At the same time Marcus has made a couple of small mistakes and that has helped me too. Of course I'm happy to be leading. But don't forget that I've been in a similar situation more than once this year - and I know that it can all change again very quickly, so I'm not planning too far ahead just yet. What I have to do tomorrow is keep it steady, watch the split times in the car and manage the pace."
Mikko Hirvonen"Actually I'm quite happy with the way that the day has gone and without the braking problem, it could have been very, very good. But, I'm feeling very positive about the way I'm driving and the car feels good. I'm going to make some small changes to the dampers tonight to see if we can get some more traction, but overall things have felt much better. I think perhaps I was thinking too much about my driving before, whereas now I'm just driving in a way I feel is right and I'm much happier. The plan now is to keep driving this way and catch the guys in front."
David Lapworth, Team Principal"We're very happy with such a good performance today from Petter. He seems confident in the capabilities of the car and the tyres and his overall lead tonight puts him in a strong position for the rest of the event. It's been a good day too for Mikko, although the incident on SS4 means that the overall results don't really reflect this. Mikko was unlucky to collect the damage, but we all accept that it's just one of those incidents that happens in rallying from time to time. He has driven exactly according to our plan, and has recorded some very good stage times, regularly beating far more experienced drivers."
