Four stages have been run this morning i Rally Norway and the top field is close. After SS5 Kongsvinger Hirvonen leads the pack 4.8s before Sebastien Loeb. Latvala is rounding off the podium positions 25.7 after Hirvonen. The fight is close – Hirvonen took the lead on SS2 but was overtaken by Loeb on SS3 before he got the lead back on SS4.
Some people have had problems this morning, including both home runners in the Adapta World Rally Team. Anders Gröndal went off the road into a ditch on SS5. He managed to get back on the road, but the car is damaged and he is reported to have gearbox problems. Remains to see if the Adapta WRT can fix the problems in the remote service. No matter what, he is now more than 12 minutes off the lead. Also Östberg had problems on SS5 when he overtook a junction and had to reverse to get back on track. He lost around one minute on the stage and is now on 13th position – but with gearbox problems reported.
In PWRC Patrik Sandell shows the potential of the Skoda Fabia S2000 and leads the field. However, Andreas Mikkelsen has beaten Sandell in two stages in a row now, showing that the classical group N cars can still challenge. Sandell will have to look out not to be overtaken by Mikkelsen who is less than 10 seconds behind. For Flodin and Brynhildsen everything seems to have went wrong on SS5. Both have lost more than 11 minutes, but the problem is unknown. Clear is that they wont be battling for the PWRC victory.
The battle in Norway will continue at 12:51 local time with the Opaker stage.
