Solberg out for some fun

Despite winning five of the day's stages, the Subaru ace admitted that he has found it difficult to compete right on the ragged edge because his efforts will not be rewarded at the end of the rally.

Solberg was forced to retire form the event after breaking his steering on a rock. He has been allowed to continue to the rally though under the SupeRally restart system, which allows drivers to return to the competition without being classified at the end of the event.

"There are a couple of stages that we weren't able to do yesterday so we lost a couple of seconds on those, but we won the new ones," he said. "When you're out of the fight and the pressure's off, it's difficult to push that last little bit. We're out there now to experiment with the set-up a bit and have a little fun, it's not quite a Sunday drive though.

"On SS10 I slowed down to first gear to pass Marcus' accident and lost a bit of time there, but apart from that they've been good runs. There was quite a lot of dust in the car, which made it a bit uncomfortable for Phil, but mechanically things have been fine. We've gone for some slightly harder tyres and have raised the ride-height a little. It's a good opportunity to do some testing."

Subaru team-mate, Mikko Hirvonen, is currently in fourth place overall between Ford's Francois Duval and privateer Antony Warmbold, and is also helping the team focus on evaluating set-ups for next year.