Hills of discontent and morning blues

Leg Three of Targa Tasmania was a Jekyll and Hyde day for Team Skoda carsales driver Mike Sinclair, who ruefully described himself as needing "a tune-up" after the morning stages.

But after the lunch stop in Devonport, Sinclair put his head down and by the time he had reached rally HQ at Launceston's Silverdome, he was more pleased with his driving.

Sinclair admitted that no matter how hard he drives, the Octavia RS, which is running second in the two-wheel drive Showroom category, can't match the class-leading Mazda3 MPS driven by young professional rally ace, Brendan Reeves.

Today's hilly stages were tough on the Octavia, which has a DSG double-clutch automatic gearbox and also weighs more than the Mazda, making uphill charges tough.

"I was much happier with how I performed in the second half of the Leg," Sinclair said.

"I was a bit more accurate and committed to what I was doing. The big stages today were Paloona and Mount Roland and, unfortunately, both had long uphill sections and we don't simply have the pace uphill. We try and hold on as well as we can but downhill, we're doing alright.

"The car continues to be fuss-free and at the end of stages we turn the air conditioner and radio on and relax on the way to the next stage. It's amazing how civilised the Octavia is between stages; it's still just a basic (stock) car."

Professional co-driver Bill Hayes, who normally sits next to Scottish rally ace Alister McRae in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship agreed with Sinclair's assessment.

"The uphill stages didn't really suit us; we lacked a bit of torque getting up the hills," Hayes said.

"We were a bit slow 'getting out of bed' this morning and struggled on a couple of stages but after lunch we were into it.

"There was a little bit of rain on the long Mount Roland stage, which made it interesting going downhill at 200km/h; when you see specks of water on the windscreen at that speed it gets a bit scary."

With rain predicted for the weekend, teams that have conserved their tyres over the first three days will be in a better position to push in the wet.

"Tyre-wise, we're in really good shape," Sinclair said. "We started the event with four medium and two 'R' (harder) compound tyres and we're in a good shape if it starts to rain."

Watch our Leg Three interviews with driver Mike Sinclair and co-driver Bill Hayes.

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