End of leg 2 Rally Monte Carlo

Leg two, or leg 3 actually, of Rally Monte Carlo is finished, with Petter holding 6th position. Petter is happy with the results, but says they still have a long way to go before they get to know the tyres properly. The teameffort has been great, but the tyrechoice on Friday morning really put and end to hoping for topresults. Chris is holding 5th position, and has two stagewins today. With only a second up to Hirvonen who is number 4, we know there will be a fight for this position tomorrow. Brother Henning is number 15 overall so far, and says he still has a lot to learn about the new car.

Supporters gathered around the Subaruarea early this afternoon, already at 1500pm there were lots of people waiting for Petter, who was due in at the servicepark at 1645. There has been thousands of spectators out on the stages, but most impressive is the hugh amount that has been waiting on the roadsections, cheering for the drivers as they head to the stages. At 6am in the morning, still dark and cold, they are ready with their cameras. I have never seen so many spectators at the roadsections on any rally before. And down at the servicepark, the marshals had to get assistance from the police to keep the spectators behind the barriers.
The rally continues tomorrow with a 2,8km’s long super special stage in the lower part of the Formula 1 circuit in Monte Carlo harbour. The first two cars sets off at 0900. Starting order is based on the overall classification from today, which means that it will be car no 40 versus car no 39, and so on. At 0955 they will start with car no 20th versus car no 19th. This means that Chris and Petter will race in a pair and so will Sordo and Loeb. All cars must use unstudded snowtyres.

The servicepark is almost empty now, Petter, Phil, Chris and Glen are heading down to Monte Carlo by air, together with the management. Just a handful of the teammembers will be down there tomorrow, most of them are going home tonight. And the rest of us are just about to get into the car and start the 4hour drive down to the jetset-city.