Rallying - Wilson and team-mate fight for top-five spot in Portugal (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Rallying - Wilson and team-mate fight for top-five spot in Portugal

11:30am Saturday 26th March 2011 in Sport

M-SPORT Stobart Ford’s Matthew Wilson and Henning Solberg are battling it out for fifth place at the end of the first full day of action at Vodafone Rally de Portugal.

Only 4.7 seconds separate the Ford Fiesta RS WRC team-mates as Solberg holds fifth and Britain’s Wilson lies just behind in sixth.

Norway’s Solberg and co-driver Ilka Minor reported issues with intermittent misfire on their Fiesta RS WRC during the road sections this morning but the team sorted the problem at the midday service.

Solberg had a trouble-free afternoon on the repeat 64.57 km loop and the M-Sport Stobart team-mate moved into fifth place after his younger brother Petter suffered from a puncture on Stage 6.

Wilson and fellow Cumbrian Scott Martin reported a good car set-up on the opening loop but during the day’s closing stage their Fiesta RS WRC suffered power loss on the uphill sections.

The team are hoping to sort the problem during tonight’s service in order for Wilson to produce his best ever finish in Portugal.

Norway’s Mads Østberg had an unfortunate start after suffering from a broken gearbox 300m into today’s opening stage.

This was a further blow for the 23-year-old driver after the front right wheel of his Fiesta RS WRC was torn off whilst tackling the 3.27 km Super Special held in Lisbon yesterday afternoon.

The loose wheel hit a spectator in the crowd who was taken to hospital for precautionary checks but was later released with no reported injuries.

Østberg and co-driver Jonas Andersson will restart Rally de Portugal tomorrow morning under SupeRally regulations.

Matthew Wilson said: “The car feels quite flat in the higher gears, it’s worst when we’re going uphill and on the really fast sections.

"We’re having to really push downhill in order to make up for the big chunks of time we are losing everywhere else – that last stage was really bad as you’re climbing from the very start.

"I don’t think it’s a misfire but the team are going to try and find out what’s happening at service as it’s not clear from the data.

"It’s also been very rough on the stages but, for sure, it’ll be worse tomorrow afternoon because they’ve got the national rally passing through in the morning.

"But everything has been good generally – the chassis feels very good. I’m feeling confident that we can get some good split times tomorrow and continue our battle for fifth with Henning.”