Solberg comes out fighting

Petter Solberg won today’s first two stages of the Cyprus Rally to begin his fightback after a day-one disappointment.

The world champion was leading comfortably yesterday when sand blocked the radiator of his Subaru, forcing him to coast to the finish on three stages at a cost of almost 10 minutes.

Just to score world championship points is now an uphill battle for the Norwegian but he came out fighting this morning.

Solberg, 11th overnight, won stage seven in nine minutes, 10.1 seconds from Peugeot’s Marcus Gronholm, who inherited the lead yesterday.

Solberg made it two out of two today with victory on stage eight, taking the honours in 27mins 17.1secs to move into 10th overall, over two minutes and two places away from the points.

At the top of the leaderboard Gronholm is edging towards his first win of the season.

Peugeot’s two-time world champion holds a 20.8-second lead over his nearest challenger Markko Martin.

The Ford driver leads the world championship by a point from Sebastien Loeb and is just 2.4secs ahead of the third-placed Citroen man after eight stages.