Subaru apologise to Solberg.

Subaru World Rally team boss, David Lapworth has issued a public apology to Petter Solberg, after a mistake by the Banbury based outfit cost him over half of his lead on the Acropolis Rally.

Speaking following the 30-second penalty, which was imposed by stewards as the Norwegian's Impreza WRC left final service with no rear-mud flaps, Lapworth was less than pleased.

"On behalf of our team I would like to apologise to World Champion Petter Solberg that a common, minor technical infringement has resulted in a halving of his rally lead," he said.

"Our oversight in not re-fitting the mud-flaps provided no competitive advantage whatsoever and occurred when replacing the damaged rear bumper of his car. We hope that the penalty will have no bearing on the result of this rally."

Solberg now leads the event by 28.5 seconds, although his advantage had been as much as 1 minute 23 seconds at one point today, prior to a brake problem on SS13, and then the penalty.

"Today I've been keeping one eye on the split times and trying to keep myself out of trouble," said Solberg, speaking before the 'mud-flap incident', "On the whole it's been a very good day but there's still a long way to go before we can think about a party. I was a bit nervous about the brake problem earlier, but I'm lucky there was a service straight after and apart from that things have been perfect.

"Tomorrow is bound to be a very tough day - I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. I do like a good battle and still prefer to push flat-out all the time, rather than having to be clever about my speed, but it's a strategy I must learn."

Mikko Hirvonen's encouraging performance in the sister Impreza meanwhile came to an unfortunate end on the penultimate stage, when his car collided with a large rock in the road. Although he completed SS16, he didn't make it back to the final service.

"Obviously I'm very disappointed to have finished like this, especially as I felt I was making good progress with my driving, but when I came around the corner there was just nothing I could do to miss the rock," explained the Finn. "Still, there have been plenty of good things to come out of this rally, and looking ahead to Turkey for sure I'll try to keep the speed, and use the performance of the car to achieve a better result there."