Shakedown – Gronholm beats Loeb and sets the tone
The agenda for Thursday was slightly adjusted for the World Rally Championship teams. The shakedown of the Rally Ireland lasted only three hours between 7 am and 10 am this morning. Just enough time for Marcus Grönholm (Ford) to set the best time. The leader of the World Championship covered the 2.87 kilometers in 1’37”3 […]
The agenda for Thursday was slightly adjusted for the World Rally Championship teams. The shakedown of the Rally Ireland lasted only three hours between 7 am and 10 am this morning. Just enough time for Marcus Grönholm (Ford) to set the best time.
The leader of the World Championship covered the 2.87 kilometers in 1’37”3 in his best run. Grönholm is ahead of Chris Atkinson (Subaru) and Mikko Hirvonen (Ford) under a gray sky but with dry weather.
Andreas Mikkelsen (Ford), who won a local event a few weeks ago, is in fourth place ahead of the two Citroën C4 WRCs of Sébastien Loeb and Dani Sordo. Petter Solberg (Subaru) completes the top 8 of this session.
After this shakedown, the press conference was also moved up. All crews are heading to Belfast, UK, for the first special stage which will start at 7:00 PM local time (8:00 PM in France).
According to the WRC
