Zoom Differing strategies amongst the front-runners

Neither Mikko Hirvonen nor Marcus Grönholm took any risks regarding tyre choice this weekend in their BP Ford Focus'. Both Finns took the safe option (medium-soft compound) for the morning's action, switching to the medium compound for the afternoon's stages. There was a significant difference in the wear-rate noted amongst the Ford drivers after the second attempt at Baumholder for which they all chose '2' compound g-Force Profilers: the wear rate of Grönholm and Hirvonen was 60%, but Wilson and Latvala both came away from the military ranges with extremely worn tyres.

For Friday afternoon's loop, Citroën's works drivers took a gamble when they chose '0+'compound g-Force Profilers, but the move failed to pay off as well as it did in 2006. The anticipated rain failed to materialize and Sébastien Loeb had to push very hard to limit the damage. The rest of the weekend turned out to be more straightforward in terms of tyre choices, while the Frenchman looked after his tyres perfectly over the Baumholder ranges.

Subaru was the only team to nominate a hard compound tyre for the second attempt at the Baumholder stages which saw Atkinson post a fastest time (SS14). The Australian claimed two other fastest times on medium-soft and medium tyres, making it three best times on three different compounds. Solberg and Atkinson chose medium-soft rubber for Friday morning (when the other teams opted for mediums) and both made a poor choice for Saturday morning's loop.

François Duval did not make the same mistake as the factory Citroën drivers on the Friday afternoon. While the factory pair went for a soft compound, the Belgian chose the medium-soft alternative to emerge in front at the end of Leg 1. He explained his two spins on SS7 by cold tyres. Stohl took the soft compound for on SS7 and SS8 (while all the others were on medium-softs) and was a creditable seventh quickest on SS7 but then retired on the following stage.

Sébastien Loeb (Citroën/BFGoodrich)
"Despite my poor tyre choice for Friday afternoon, this is a very positive result for me. Last year, the soft option worked to our advantage but not this time. It was raining heavily as we pulled out of the service park in Trier and we thought the stages would be damp, or even that it might rain again during the afternoon, so we opted for the soft compound. However, three minutes after leaving service, we could see that the weather was perfectly clear in the direction we were heading. I knew it wouldn't be easy but we nonetheless succeeded in limiting the damage by pushing as hard as we could."