Solberg crashes in German shakedown.

Subaru team leader, Petter Solberg has crashed during the shakedown for the Rallye Deutschland on Thursday, the ninth round in the 2006 FIA World Rally Championship.

Solberg was on his fifth run through the 3.17 kilometre test stage from Sotern to Bosen, near the Bostalsee service park, when he went wide and his Impreza WRC 2006 left the road, hitting two trees.

Unfortunately the car sustained damage to both the front and rear, however a spokesperson for the SWRT told Crash.net that the roll-cage was not affected and as such they are confident of repairing it prior to the start of the event on Friday. Both Petter and co-driver, Phil Mills escaped without injury.

"The session had started really well, we did four runs without any problems and I could tell that the car had improved a hell of a lot. But before the fifth run we made some changes to the rear set up and that gave a little too much understeer," 'Hollywood' explained to the official SWRT team website - www.swrt.com. "On the last two corners I got off the right line, onto some loose grave and then spun off into the trees.

"Phil and I are okay, but we were going pretty quickly in fourth gear so the car took a big knock. The guys are working flat out now to try and repair things. We're keeping our fingers crossed."

Subaru mechanics meanwhile have already started work on repairing the battered Impreza and they have until 08.30 hours on Friday morning to get the job done.

While this is a major blow to Petter's hopes and that of the team, especially with the Rally Finland following next weekend, it is worth noting he did a similar trick in Corsica in 2003 and still went on to win. Admittedly the Impreza isn't as competitive now as it was then, but it shows anything is possible.