Newsflash 2

Issued at 14:30          19-04-2008

Mitsubishi’s continue their dominance on the second day of the Pirelli International Rally.  Guy Wilks extending his lead to 46 seconds from Finland’s Juho Hanninen with Mark Higgins (MGS2000 Sport) doggedly hanging on in third place keeping Phillip Morrow, in yet another Mitsubishi, at bay.

Morrow was in fact quickest on the day’s opening stage, 4 seconds up on Wilks, Hanninen and Higgins.  Rob Swan (Subaru) was slowed by a persistent misfire, Adam Gould’s Clio hit a bridge, Melis Charalambous’ Subaru spent 2 minutes off the road and Martin McCormack, after an overnight gearbox change, had problems restarting the cars engine.

Stage 6 was cancelled after McRae’s misfortune so the final morning session was on Pundershaw when Wilks was again the pacesetter ahead of Morrow, Higgins and Patrick Flodin who was fast getting acustomed to the Kielder Stages. Hugh Evans put his Subaru off and lost 15 minutes, Matthew Cotton dropped a lot of time when his Citroen C2R2 suffered a persistant misfire.

After a service halt at Carlisle Airport the cars face a further 7 Stages back in the forest.

Results after SS7

1. Guy Wilkes / Phillip Pugh                         Evo 9             42:51.9

2. Juho Hanninen / Mikko Markkula            Evo 9             43:38.7

3. Mark Higgins / Rory Kennedy                  MG 2000       43:43.8