Sainz out of Rally GB!!!!!

[GaryR]

Carlos Sainz went off the road and is out of the Rally of Great Britain. The Spaniard and his co-driver are fine but are obviously eliminated from the championship battle.

That leaves Sebastien Loeb and Petter Solberg alone in a duel for the 2003 Drivers' Championship title. So far the two men are leading the rally, Loeb in front of Solberg.

Sebastien was the fastest in SS3, 2"5 seconds in front of the Norwegian in second position. The overall gap between Loeb who is the rally leader and Solberg who is in second place increases to 3"8 seconds.

Markko Martin was able to continue despite his earlier engine problems. The Estonian takes third place in SS3, in front of Tommi Makinen (4th), Colin McRae (5th), Harri Rovanpera (6th) and Francois Duval (7th).

Marcus Gronholm also went off the road in this stage. The Finn was able to continue but his Peugeot 206 has substantial damage at the front. Marcus lost more than 13 minutes in the incident.

Mikko Hirvonen also got involved in an accident. The Ford driver broke the left rear wheel off his Focus and had to retire.

 

[Hell Patrol]

poor guy

 

[Scaff]

End of day one and Sainz, Makkinen and Martin are all out.

Sainz went off the road in a fairly big way, possiably distracted by a fire in his car before he started the first of the days stages. He has acknowledged that he did not hear a call correctly.

Makkinen hit a log and took out most of his front left wheel, he got the car to the end of the stage (dropping 14 minutes) but the police would not allow him to drive the car on the public roads with the damage it had sustained.

Martin had coolant problems for much of the day and despite getting the car back to service and the Ford team getting it back out in the road the engine gave up.

So the standing at the end of day one is:


1. P SOLBERG 1:32:37.2

2. S LOEB +8.0

3. T MÄKINEN +1:32.2

4. C MCRAE +1:43.6

5. H ROVANPERÄ +2:41.2

6. G PANIZZI +2:49.3

7. F DUVAL +3:35.2

8. R KRESTA +4:05.2

Citroen have told Loed that a Manufacturers win for them is more important than a Drivers championship win for himself and as they are currently 5 points behind Peugeot. As a result he appears to have backed off and is now in second place to Solberg.

 

[Roo]

Citreon are currently 5 points ahead of Peugeot. Rovennpera is the highest Peugeot in 5th, and Citreon are 2nd and 4th. Loeb doesn't actually need to slow down, as Citreon have a little gap and most of Peugeot's top drivers are out. Still, the slower Loeb goes the better, because then Solberg's more likely to win. And to a Subaru supporter, that's good.

Current standings (after SS13):

1. P SOLBERG 2:24:29.0
2. S LOEB+31.3
3. T MÄKINEN+2:03.9
4. C MCRAE+2:14.1
5. H ROVANPERÄ+3:59.4
6. F DUVAL+4:57.4
7. F LOIX+5:50.6
8. M STOHL+6:24.4

Go Petter!