More woes for Solberg

Solberg, who won the same event last season, was already way down the order after his rear driveshaft broke during the opening stage, forcing him to drive the first two stages in two-wheel drive, losing him nearly three minutes.

But more technical dramas problems manifested themselves in SS4, when the Impreza's gearshift kept selecting neutral.

On the way back to service park the car got stuck in neutral again, and Solberg and co-driver Phil Mills had to get out and work under the car to manually wedge the transmission into first gear.

By the time they had got the car back to service he was thirteen minutes late. Ten penalty seconds are awarded for every minute late a car arrives at a time control, hence the 2 minutes and 10 seconds penalty awarded to Solberg.

The car has now been fitted with a new gearbox and the Norwegian is out again this afternoon.