[Auto] Lindholm leads the stage

[SougarLord]

 

At the wheel of a Skoda Fabia Rally2, the Finn was unrivaled on both stages of the day, gaining a 10.9-second lead over his closest rival, Teemu Asunmaa, on the super-fast snow stages.

 

"The day was pretty good, but the conditions were much tougher than we expected," explained Lindholm. "We are in the lead, so in general everything is fine," he added.

 

Estonian star Egon Kaur has split a Finnish-dominated top 5, 10.4 seconds behind Teemu Asunmaa in a Volkswagen Polo, leaving Eerik Pietarinen, fourth, 12.4 seconds behind. Local hero Mikko Heikkilä was 1.2 seconds behind in a similar car.

 

The previous World Rallycross champions Johan Kristoffersson and Mattias Ekström were sixth and seventh respectively.

 

Kristoffersson was the strongest of the Swedish pair and briefly stayed in third position after the first stage with his Polo, while Ekström was simply happy to keep running after his Fabia got stuck in a snowbank in the shakedown this morning.

 

Skoda driver Ville Ruokanen was 1min 27.9s behind the leaders in eighth, closely followed by WRC3 rookie Fabrizio Zaldivar, who finished Friday's day 15.4s away in his similar car.

 

Lithuanian driver Vladas Jurkevičius completed the top ten just 7 seconds behind Zaldivar in another Fabia.