Atkinson tops the WRC shakedown time sheet

Chris Atkinson of the Subaru World Rally Team was the fastest WRC driver at today’s pre-event shakedown.

The Australian drove his Impreza WRC2007 through the 1.8km test stage in 1min 6.1sec, three tenths of a second better than Sebastien Loeb and Petter Solberg who tied the next quickest time.

Because of the unseasonably warm weather in Karlstad, the stage was covered by only a thin layer of ice, and this quickly gave way to gravel in the corners and braking zones. For this reason many drivers finished the four-hour session after only four or five runs.

“Even though the stage wasn’t very representative of the rest of the rally, it was still a useful exercise,” said Atkinson. “There were some very icy sections so we’ve been able to check the car and get a feeling for how it handles - so far everything seems good.”

The Stobart Ford line-up of Gigi Galli and Henning Solberg were joint fourth-fastest, just ahead of 18-year old Andreas Mikkelsen in a privately entered 2006 specification Ford Focus.

Top-10 shakedown times:

1 Atkinson Subaru 1:06.1
=2 Loeb Citroen 1:06.4
=2 P. Solberg Subaru 1:06.4
=4 Galli Ford 1:06.7
=4 H. Solberg Ford 1:06.7
6 Mikkelsen Ford 1:06.9
7 Latvala Ford 1:07.0
8 Hirvonen Ford 1:07.2
9 Andersson Suzuki 1:07.3
10 Gardemeister Suzuki 1:07.7