Dani Sordo said an increase in confidence behind the wheel of his MINI John Cooper Works WRC enabled him to set the fastest time on the rerun of Labatie d’Andaure-Lalouvesc to close up to second overall on Rallye Monte-Carlo.
Sordo was 0.2s faster than event leader Sebastien Loeb and 2.2s quicker than second-placed Petter Solberg, the 2003 world rally champion.
“I have more feeling with the car, the road is better and I have more confidence with the soft tyre,” said Spaniard Sordo, who is now 1.5s behind Norwegian Solberg. “I can push more because I also did some small modification in the shocks and also the gearbox [in service].”
Loeb, at the wheel of a Citroen DS3 WRC, said the stage surface wasn’t entirely to his liking: “It was a bit more tricky with some little mud in some corners because of the cut of some other cars so it was more slippery but it was okay, no problem.”
Solberg reported making a minor mistake in his Ford Fiesta RS WRC: “It was a very, very tricky stage. I did one mistake, that’s how it is sometimes. I’m happy with the time so no problem. I just locked up in a hairpin and that’s enough to lose the time.”
Volkswagen Motorsport’s Sebastien Ogier said the dry conditions would rule out further progress in his Super 2000-specification Skoda Fabia. He has slipped to sixth overall behind M-Sport Ford driver Evgeny Novikov as a result. Mikko Hirvonen maintains his grip on fourth in the second factory Citroen.
The bulk of the leading runners have opted to run on soft-compound Michelin tyres with one spare only for Thursday afternoon’s loop of three stages. Stage nine, St Bonnet, gets underway at 15:31hrs local time.