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Toni
Gardemeister's efforts on the 78th Rallye Monte Carlo
took a further knock yesterday as he lost a big chunk of
time with a puncture on stage five and two spins on
stage nine which drop him down to tenth place overall
going into today's final leg. Driving an Astra
Racing-prepared Grande Punto S2000 on the rally for the
second consecutive year, Gardemeister's troubles
followed a very difficult opening day when wrong tyre
choices and an off cost him time.
Thursday's
six-stage second day, taking place in the Haute Loire region of
France, started off in the worst possible way for
Gardemeister as he lost 2m47.9s to the winner of the first
stage of the morning (SS5) after posting the 32nd fastest
time following a puncture; it dropped him from his overnight
seventh place to ninth overall.
Although the weather conditions were remarkably tame on Wednesday’s first leg,
black ice and snow littered yesterday’s first two stages. The majority of the
leading crews opted to use full studded tyres for the first loop in the hope
they would provide sufficient grip to withstand the treacherous stage
conditions. The Finn lost a further 1m25.3s on the next test, SS6, with twelfth
fastest time after a conservative run. "We had a puncture on
the first stage and now we went very careful with spare tyre
without studs," he said. The next test saw the Abarth driver
bouncing back, going sixth fastest and reporting: "It was
little bit muddy and damp, but no problem," as the crews
headed to the first of the day's two service points.
Into the second
loop of three stages Gardemeister posted another sixth
fastest time on SS8, however on the next stage he suffered
two spins and was only twelfth quickest, dropping 1m51.0s to
the fastest car through the stage. With a battered car, the
Finn was eight fastest on the last stage of the day: "We
lost the bumper on the previous stage so we had only light
on the bonnet shining too high," reported Gardemeister. It
leaves him in tenth spot going into the final day today, but
a massive 9m13.0s off the rally leader, Mikko Hirvonen, and
nearly two minutes off the car in front on the leaderboard.
Elsewhere the only other Abarth Grande Punto in the rally,
the private-entry of Olivier Marty, continued to fight back
up the order after he lost time on day one after running out
of fuel and having to push the car 5 kilometres to the
finish. He is in 22nd overall at parc ferme in Valence going
into today's last day, 25m34.1s off the rally leader, while
Monte Carlo regular Martin Rada in his N3 class Alfa 147 TS
is still going strong and now up to 36th overall.
At the front Hirvonen continues to lead the
rally , the
opening round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
The Finn, who is driving the M-Sport Fiesta S2000 in competition for the first
time, heads the overall standings by 47.7 seconds following Thursday’s six
stages. Juho Hanninen is second for the works Skoda Motorsport team with
Sebastien Ogier battling from fifth, at the start of yesterday, up to third,
last night, in a Peugeot 207
S2000, courtesy of three stage wins.
While Hirvonen edged closer to a debut IRC victory, last year’s champion Kris
Meeke was an early retirement, crashing out one kilometre from the start of the
day’s first stage. The Briton clipped a patch of black ice on a right-hand bend,
understeered into a low bridge and veered down a bank, where his Peugeot 207
became stranded. Meeke opted to run half studs in the hope they would give
him an advantage on the third stage of the day, which was largely free of ice
and snow.
Unfortunately for the Peugeot UK driver he never made it that far and, for a
second year in succession, he and Irish co-driver Paul Nagle have failed to
finish the demanding asphalt event.
Hirvonen’s day wasn’t entirely free of incident. He picked up a front-left
puncture six kilometres from the end of the day’s second stage when he struck a
rock lying in a snow bank. It resulted in a 40-second delay for the 29-year-old
World Rally Championship regular.
Hanninen inherited second overall when Meeke crashed but felt he could have been
closer on time to his countryman Hirvonen heading into Friday’s final leg. He
said he had driven too aggressively on the day’s last stage, which caused his
rear tyres to lose grip towards the end of the run.
Ogier’s main cause of complaint occurred on the last test of the opening loop of
three stages when he and co-driver Julien Ingrassia received a split time that
was faster than they had actually recorded. Assuming they were setting a strong
pace, they backed off in order to avoid making any mistakes but were ultimately
too cautious than they should have been.
Skoda driver Nicolas Vouilloz started the day ahead of Ogier but, despite going
fastest on the first stage, was powerless to prevent last year’s Monte Carlo
winner from moving ahead.
After a time-consuming puncture on Wednesday, Stephane Sarrazin suffered further
delay today when he slid into a snow bank on stage six and got stuck for more
than two minutes. The French Peugeot driver blamed the incident on carrying too
much speed into an ice-coated corner.
Franz Wittmann, Guy Wilks and Bruno Magalhaes completed the top eight at the
overnight halt in Valence while next up was Skoda driver Kopecky who suffered a puncture on stage
seven.
Today’s final leg gets underway with the 30.42-kilometre stage from Montauban
sur Ouveze to Eygalayes, 120 kilometres south east of Valence. Crews then
continue south to Monte Carlo for an early evening service before they tackle
the final four stages at night, which include two passes over the famous Col de
Turini in the mountains above Monaco. The first car is due to finish at 0105hrs
on Saturday.
78th
Rallye Monte Carlo, leading positions at the end of Leg
2
1 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Ford Fiesta S2000
3h12m44.0s
2 Juho Hanninen/Mikko Markkula Skoda Fabia S2000 +47.7s
3 Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia Peugeot 207 S2000
+1m10.3s
4 Nicolas Vouilloz/Benjamin Veillas Skoda Fabia S2000
+1m34.3s
5 Stephane Sarrazin/Jacques Julien Renucci Peugeot 207
S2000 +6m06.0s
6 Franz Wittmann/Klaus Wicha Peugeot 207 S2000 +6m53.8s
7 Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh Skoda Fabia S2000 +7m07.3s
8 Bruno Magalhaes/Carlos Magalhaes Peugeot 207 S2000
+7m12.8s
9 Jan Kopecky/Petr Stary Skoda Fabia S2000 +7m24.4s
10 Toni Gardemeister/Tomi Tuominen Abarth Grande Punto
S2000 +9m13.0s
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