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Junior WRC in Corsica: Solans fends off Folb

Spain's Nil Solans held off a charging Terry Folb to retain the lead of the opening round of the FIA Junior WRC in Corsica on saturday.

In action-packed second day at the Che Guevara Energy Drink Tour de Corse, Solans' overnight advantage was slashed by 14.5sec as Folb ended 25.6sec behind.

"I tried just to be safe today and avoid mistakes and problems," explained Solans. "But that wasn't very easy as on the second pass there were lots of cuts and gravel dragged out. I'm happy still to have a good lead."

Solans won the opening 48.71km speed test but Frenchman Folb was quickest through SS6 and SS8, taking his stage victory count to three.

"The objective today was to try and score fastest times for the extra points so that worked very well," said Folb. "We tried to pull away from Nicolas Ciamin but actually closing the gap to Solans at the front was perfect, we are very happy."

Ciamin maintained his final podium place thanks to a quickest time through SS7. He is now 18.2 seconds behind Folb with one day remaining of the asphalt fixture.

The tricky afternoon stages, littered with sections of slippery gravel, proved too much for some. William Wagner and Kevin Parent required precautionary medical attention after crashing heavily near the start of SS7, while Rob Duggan went off 7km into the test.

Zdroj: wrc.com