Solberg, the big loser of the morning

The 12th special of Rally Monte-Carlo has shaken up the rankings. The roads, soaked by rain, were covered in ice and the crews feared making a mistake on the route linking the Cimetière de Vassieux to the Col de Gaudissart. Petter Solberg managed to take second place from Dani Sordo in SS11 (St-Jean-en-Royans? Font d'Urle) but a poor choice of tires cost him dearly in the following special.

Having made the decision to opt for slicks instead of studded tyres, the Norwegian lost more than a minute on his Spanish rival and returned to the Valencia service park with a delay of 57” on the Mini driver. Solberg even found himself threatened by Mikko Hirvonen, who took advantage of the Citroën WRT's good tire strategy to achieve the scratch in SS6 and come back to 12" from a place on the podium.

Evgenly Novikov (Ford) also suffered from a poor choice of tires but he still managed to increase his lead over François Delecour (Ford), still sixth, almost two minutes behind the Russian. Pierre Campana (Mini) and Ott Tänak (Ford) are still fighting for seventh place. The Bastiais responded to the Estonian, who had taken the advantage in SS11, by setting the third fastest time in SS12 just 13"7 behind Mikko Hirvonen, to reach the service park with a lead of 53 »2.

The crews have one more special stage on the program today. Sebastian Loeb will be the first to set off at 15:11 p.m. on the route linking Montauban-sur-l’Ouvèze to Eygalayes. The leader of the Rallye Monte-Carlo will start with a lead of 2’09”0 over Dani Sordo.

Discover in your AUTOhebdo magazine, currently on newsstands or available here, our guide WRC 2012 of 38 pages.