Solberg not ruling out slowing tactics

Date published : 05 Mar 2010 - 18:14:00

Petter Solberg says he still holds all the aces on the opening day of Rally Mexico - and the 2003 World Rally champion is ready to sacrifice his lead for the right place on the road tomorrow.The Norwegian leads by 17.1 seconds after the morning's four stages, having been quickest on three of them. He admitted, however, the hard work will begin this afternoon when the road surface will be cleaner for all of the drivers. Solberg has been running eighth on the road in favourable conditions through the morning."This is more than just the road position," said Solberg looking at the times. "The driving has been good as well. I'm very happy so far, but the guys will be coming quicker this afternoon."Solberg said he would not be thinking about tactics until the final gravel stage of the day, when he would react to whatever the drivers ahead of him do."We have the advantage here," he said. "I can do whatever I want after they have made their move. The important thing is to get to Saturday night with a 27-second lead, that would allow us to lose about a second per kilometre on the final day and still win."There's a lot of loose around tomorrow, so it's really important to make sure we're in the right place tomorrow as well. It's tough to decide what to do: do we keep pushing and try to build the lead or do we stop and hand the lead over for the right place on the road tomorrow? We'll see."Solberg added that he could have gone quicker still through the morning stages if had he used a better suspension set-up for Guanajuato's gravel roads.