Rally Australia: Skoda leg two summary

Toni Gardemeister (8th) happy with his Octavia WRC.
Kenneth Eriksson (11th) looks forward to a fight.

After completing 20 stages, the Skoda Motorsport Team looks forward to the last four stages tomorrow and finishing the Rally Australia with a 100% reliability record. Toni Gardemeister ended the second day of the rally in eighth position, almost a minute behind the Ford pairing of Markko Martin and Francois Duval.

Gardemeister explained: "I have been happy with the handling of my Skoda Octavia WRC all day. I was a little bit faster in the morning, but that's because I prefer the longer stages. It is much harder to find a good rhythm when the stages are so short."

Toni was realistic about his chances of improvement, saying: "The two guys in front of me are almost a minute ahead. Under normal circumstances we cannot hope to catch them, but I am certainly going to try anyway."

His co-driver Paavo Lukander was ebullient when arriving in Perth: "Things went really well today," he said. "The car was nicely balanced and Toni drove well. That's why I stopped the team changing to different tyres. It could have altered the good balance we had just achieved." To round off a hard day's work, he summoned his driver to help change a flat tyre just before the time control, ready for the Superspecial at the end of the day.

Kenneth Eriksson was much happier with his car today, commenting: "It was not easy for us as we were the first car on the road. This meant we had to 'clean' the road for the following cars which is a handicap of course." On stage 11 the Swede hit a tree stump with the right front wheel which necessitated some provisional repairs, but otherwise he had a trouble free run.

Since they were only about five seconds behind Mitsubishi's Jani Paasonen after his roll, this crew had something to aim for again, according to co-driver Tina Thörner: "This morning, with that huge gap in front of us, we had nothing to go for," she said. At the end of the day Paasonen had a jump start at the superspecial and his slim lead over Eriksson changed in a five second deficit. Said Tina: "Now we have a new focus: we must try to stay ahead of Jani!"

Within the Skoda Motorsport Team there were more smiles than before as team principal Pavel Janeba commented: "Toni did a good job today, posting some very good stage times. But fifty seconds is a lot and we don't want to risk anything, because a place higher would still not give us any points." Janeba also praised Kenneth Eriksson, observing: "I am glad Kenneth is still fighting - it proves he is a highly motivated sportsman."

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