Petter Solberg has lost fourth position on Vodafone Rally de Portugal after his Ford Fiesta RS WRC suffered powersteering failure on Saturday’s final stage, the 22.57-kilometre Loule test.
Solberg completed the run with his car’s rear sump guard missing. However, that was the least of the Norwegian’s worries after it took him a minute more than stage winner Dani Sordo to complete the test.
“I’ve got no power steering,” said Solberg, who slips behind Nasser Al-Attiyah in the overall classification. “It happened just before the stage. I’ve probably lost my fourth place. It’s another day tomorrow.”
Sordo’s fastest time came despite the build up of dust inside his MINI John Cooper Works WRC, which has been occurring since his co-driver Carlos del Barrio’s side window fell out on stage 14.
“I tried to push really, really hard and do a good time,” said Sordo. “I’m happy with the car but I think we need to fix the window! It fell out on a fast section of a stage.”
Martin Prokop completed the stage with the soft compound rear tyres on his Fiesta badly worn. “We had no traction at all, it was crazy,” said the Czech.
Event leader Mikko Hirvonen completed day three with the fifth quickest time in his Citroen DS3 WRC. His advantage over Mads Ostberg out front increases to 1m11.9s.