Galli on course to equal his best ever WRC finish

Ahead of Saturday’s two final stages, Gigi Galli holds third place overall and is on course to equal his best ever WRC result. Galli was third on Rally Argentina in 2006 and is hoping a clean run on the remaining stages will enable him to do the same in Sweden.

“This morning has been very good we had a good pace from the first stage and just tried to keep the same speed as Henning [Solberg],” he said. “My plan is to keep driving well and find a good balance again like yesterday. I still don’t know the car well enough to push harder but I’m happy with the pace at the moment and it’s really good to have moved up into a podium position. We will try and maintain this today.”

Unfortunately for the Stobart team Galli’s move into third came at the expense of his team-mate Henning Solberg who crashed on SS11. Solberg’s Focus RS WRC07 slid into a barrier at the 22km point and sustained front-end damage. The team will make a decision about Superally after the car has been inspected back in Karlstad.

“I’m very, very disappointed,” said Henning. “We had started off well with some fast times but unfortunately I got too sideways coming out of a fast left-hand corner, hit some railings and damaged the car quite badly. I was pushing quite hard and had got into a good position, so obviously it’s been a bad end to the day for me.”

After a trouble free morning the team’s third driver, Matthew Wilson, has improved on his overnight position to occupy fifth. “We have moved up two places this morning so that has been quite promising,” said Wilson. “I’ve found a comfortable pace and the tyres have been working quite well so we will try and keep at this pace this afternoon. It’s a shame about Henning but it has moved us up to fifth and now its time for me to consolidate this position. The car feels really good and everything is working well for us.”