Wales Rally GB: Citroen Jr leg 2 summary

Sordo hangs on, Raikkonen progresses

On slippery Welsh roads, Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo finished the second day of the Rally Great Britain in fifth overall. Kimi Raikkonen and Kaj Lindstrom gained two places today and are now eighth.

With the storm system named Carmen having passed overhead, the weather in Wales was milder today with even some sunshine. But despite these sunny spells, the roads remained extremely slippery throughout the day.

Just as was the case yesterday, the crews set off for mid-Wales at 0600 from Cardiff. Dani Sordo started day two with two fourth-fastest times, which allowed him to take his place among the leading quartet, fewer than six seconds off the provisional podium.

But the Spaniard lost some of the benefit on the following two special stages. "The engine stalled at a hairpin bend on SS10," he explained. "Then on the next stage we went off into a field because of a mistake in the notes. We needed help from some of the spectators to get back onto the road." The Citroen Junior Team driver ended the morning in fifth overall.

Dani remained consistent throughout the afternoon and consolidated his place despite conditions that were still marginal. He was handicapped by a broken rear damper sustained after a heavy landing in a compression on SS11 but managed to stay in contact. The car was moving more and more with every kilometre," he recounted. "There was a lot of understeer coming out of slow corners. I think we drove well throughout the day and I'm optimistic for tomorrow. We're definitely going to attack!"

Kimi Raikkonen started 10th this morning and made an increasing amount of progress throughout the opening loop of stages. "The first three stages went very well," reported the Finn. "We had a good pace I think. The final stage of the loop was a bit more complicated and so I chose to be a little more careful. On the second run, we'll see if we can increase our pace slightly and continue the progress we've made."

Kimi was competitive throughout the afternoon but he was forced to negotiate Halfway 2 (SS15) with a badly adjusted lamp pod. "I couldn't see far enough ahead and I wasn't able to drive the stage as I would have wanted," he said. "Halfway is a particularly difficult stage. On the other stages we were able to set a few good times, so I'm happy enough with what we have achieved today."

On the final stage of the day, in Cardiff Bay, Kimi was fourth-fastest overall. "There's another difficult day ahead of us tomorrow, with a very long stage that we will drive twice," pointed out the Finn. "We need to carry on like this and try to get close to the frontrunners."

Team manager Benoît Nogier concluded: "Dani Sordo has shown once again that he is extremely competitive. There were two small mistakes that meant he lost contact with Latvala and Hirvonen but there's still everything to play for. We always have a chance of a podium. As for Kimi Raikkonen, we can only be satisfied with the level of performance that he has shown today. He's made no mistakes and was sometimes quicker than Matthew Wilson, as well as getting closer and closer to Henning Solberg."

-source: citoren