The first day of Rally Jordan began this morning with a loop of three stages: Suwayma, Kafrain and Jordan River, a tough 41-km section. At the end of SS9, three Citroën DS3 WRCs filled the first three places with under eight seconds covering Sébastien Ogier, Petter Solberg and Sébastien Loeb.**

Despite being second out on the road, Sébastien Loeb was quickest in Suwayma (SS7), the first stage of the rally. Then Petter Solberg and Sébastien Ogier each set a quickest time. Thanks to winning the Jordan River stage , Ogier took the lead, 7.2s in front of Solberg and 7.4s ahead of his fellow-countryman. Jari-Matti Latvala, only 8.8s behind the leader, is also among the front-runners. On the other hand, Mikko Hirvonen has already fallen over 50s behind.

Sébastien Ogier: “It’s all going well for us at the moment. We kept up a good pace in the first three stages without taking big risks. The gaps between the front-runners are small and yet again we see that sweeping doesn’t have as much of an influence as before. In some places the road is so dirty that even the repeated passage of the cars isn’t cleaning it. We’ll have to see if we should push this afternoon to open up the gap, or whether it’s better to position ourselves in view of the second day.”

Petter Solberg: “I’ve always been quick since the start of the year, and it’s again the case today. It’s all been going great guns for us since the rally began. We’re really concentrating hard so that we’ll be able to battle for victory tomorrow. Thanks to my position on the road I’ll be able to choose what we think is the best strategy.”**

Sébastien Loeb: “In my position, I had no choice but to go as fast as possible to try and open up a gap. But if the others manage to hang on and I’m obliged to sweep in the second leg, it’ll all be to no avail. For the moment, the new Michelin tyres seem to be satisfactory.* They’re working well and I haven’t heard of any punctures this morning.”



Kimi Raïkkönen: “Overall, it’s been a good morning apart from a few minor incidents. In the first stage I half spun. In the second, which was very slippery, I shaved a small metal post but with little damage to the car. In Jordan River, it went well and I concentrated on making no mistakes.”

Peter Van Merksteijn Jr: “I was very confident after the shakedown and I felt really good in the car. But after around ten corners in the first stage, I made a small mistake and we went a bit wide - luckily without any damage. In the second stage I was a bit nervous as I wanted to avoid going off so I didn’t push. In the last one, we had a technical problem. I don’t know what it was but we lost boost. I hope things will be better this afternoon.”*

photos: willy weyens - rallyworld








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