Rally Acropolis – before it starts

Petter Solberg is currently 2^nd in the Championship as we head to Greece and the Acropolis Rally, also know as The rally of gods.

High temperatures, dust and rocky roads are what drivers can expect when the Rally Acropolis gets underway at the end of this week. 22 stages and a total of 409 competitive kilometres will be waiting for the crews. The qualifying stage opens it all on Thursday morning, where the quickest guy gets to be the first to pick the opening start-position. In the afternoon they head into Athens for an autograph-session, before the first stage gets underway in the evening. Friday comes with two remote-services in Itea, before the day ends in Loutraki. Rally Acropolis finished with a power stage on Sunday afternoon.

Petter has a strong record in Greece.  He scored his first career podium there in 2001, won in 2004 and has five podium finishes from 11 starts.

“It’s the roughest round of the season, but we’ll see if it proves to be the toughest,” he said.  “There are many big rocks in Greece and that’s what makes the rally so tricky.  I learned a lot about rough road driving when Kenya’s Safari Rally was part of the championship, and that’s useful for Greece.  You have to be smart with your driving in this type of event.

“The rough roads and heat are also hard for the tyres.  But Michelin’s tyres have been strong this year so I’m confident they’ll be good here also.  I had some bad luck on the last two rounds, but still scored good championship points after driving at 110 per cent to climb back up the order.  Hopefully I can have a clean run and keep the points coming,” added the 37-year-old Norwegian.
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Testing for the Acropolis Rally

- Been testing for Greece for two days, at a very secret location in Portugal (don’t tell :)). 5kms road yesterday and 4 kms today, both with rough gravel. Guessing we are ready now!

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Rally Argentina 2012 – images

6th O/A, power stage win, 11 points and fastest on 11 of 19 stages. That’s Rally Argentina 2012.

Fantastic stages. Loads of spectators. Great scenery.

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One to read and one to watch

Ups and downs in Argentina, read my thoughts in my blog on crash.net !

Make sure you also watch the Ford World Rally Team’s review of Rally Argentina.

Rally Argentina 2012

6th O/A and 3 bonus points for Power Stage win.

This years Rally Argentina has proven to be a true endurance test for drivers, codrivers and cars. Petter and Chris finished 6th overall in the final classifications. Petter had a 20 second lead after stage 3 but a broken steering arm forced him to retire from the days stages. He restarted again under Rally2 on Saturday, running seventh on the road and out of the points in eleventh position. The plan was to get back as many of those points as possible and a massive attack began. In total Petter took 11 of 19 stage wins this weekend, including every stage on Sunday and the all important Powerstage victory. The result also means Petter still holds 2nd place in the Drivers Championship.

- The car is incredibly fast and amazing to drive, says Petter. – I am happy with both yesterday and today, but very disappointed regarding our problems on Friday. Relieved we managed to win the Power Stage and secure the extra points, but gutted for Dani, who had been doing extremely well this weekend.

500 competitive kilometres and 19 stages have been tackled over the weekend. Petter and Chris has been quickest trough 11 of the 19 stages, including the longest stage for 10 years the monster SS14 Matadero (65,74kms). With the time 38 minutes and 16 seconds, they completed with an average speed of 103 kp/h.

Sebastien Loeb is the winner and Mikko Hirvonen ended second. Mads Østberg claimed third, after replacement teammate Dani Sordo was forced to retire with an alternator failure on the final stage, the Power Stage.

Overall classification Rally Argentina 2012
1. Sebastien Loeb, Citroën 5.34.38,38
2. Mikko Hirvonen, Citroën +15,2
3. Mads Østberg, Ford +3.10,4
4. Martin Prokop, Ford +9.45,3
5. Thierry Neuville, Citroën +11.17,6
6. Petter, Ford +12.02,2
7. Sebastien Ogier, Skoda/VW +12.25,3

Power Stage win for Petter & Chris

SS19 Amarok Power Stage (4,15kms):
1 Petter 2.32,9
2 Hirvonen +1,1
3 Al Attiyah +1,5
4 Loeb +1,7

3 points to PS, Mikko 2 pts and 3 pts to Nasser. Sordo stopped on stage.

SS18

SS18 El Condor (11,16kms):
1. Petter 9.37,6
2. Loeb +5,1
3. Østberg +10,4
4. Sordo +13,8
5. Neuville +14,1
PS 7th O/A

SS17

SS17 Mina Clavero (17,41kms):
1. Petter 15.29,3
2. Novikov +1,7
3. Neuville +10,1
4. Sordo +10,9

PS not happy with tyre choice, went on softs. Only two more stages to go! Arujo and Nobre stopped in stage.

O/A SS16

Only three more stages to go in Argentina. Petter and Chris has climbed to 8th O/A as a result of being quickest trough the 3 stages done so far today. SS17 goes live at 14:07/19:07CET.

Overall classification after SS16
1. Loeb
2. Hirvonen +1,3
3. Sordo +1.38,1
4. Østberg +3.01,6
5. Prokop +9.14,1
6. Neuville +11.08,0
7. Ogier +11.37,3
8. Petter +12.25,5

SS16 another stage win

SS16 El Condor (16,32kms):
1. Petter 13.17,5
2. Novikov +18,5
3. Loeb +19,1
4. Hirvonen +20,2
5. Neuville +22,8
6. Sordo +23,0