Petter Solberg took a solid fifth place finish on the Rallye de France on Sunday, to maintain a run that has seen him score points on every event since💎 the Acropolis, when the all-new Impreza WRC2008 made its debut in the World Rally Championship.

Solberg was involved in an exciting three-way battle꧑ for fourth on Friday and Saturday morning, battling with his Subaru team-mate🌌, Chris Atkinson and Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala.

Atkinson was the first to drop out when he picked up a puncture in SS9, while in the repeat loop on day two, 'Hollywood' also dropped back, u♌nable to match the times𒈔 posted by Jari.

While Petter gained a place on the first stage on Sunday, when Mikko Hirvonen lost time with a pඣuncture, the same fate befell the𒁃 Norwegian in the next test, when he too lost a minute.

On the afternoon's🐷 repeat pass of the same 🅺stage, Solberg again suffered a puncture, but luckily he held onto fifth and eventually finished 35 seconds up on Atkinson.

"We had a puncture on the final stage of the morning ten kilometres from the end of the stage, and then again in the final stage, so it's disappointi🙈ng but that's what can happen," said❀ Hollywood.

"I think the first was a slow puncture as both times I didn't hit anything. After that I drove smart, just taking it easy to get to t൩he finish. I knew we didn't have time to stop and change the wheel, and that it would be quicker to just drive to the finish of both stages.

"We've tri💫ed so many things with the car on this rally with different setups, and we have improved areas. That's the problem of not having done any testing though - we make these changes on a rally. Some changes made th𝓰e car better, some worse, but that's how it goes.

"I'm happy with my performance on this rally though. We had a couple of punctures, but nobody could say I didn't try! Now we look to Japan and going🌳 back to gravel on all new routes. I've never seen the stages before but I look🐲 forward to them."

Atkinson meanwhile was also pretty pleased with his💧 form: "We had a good start and we were fighting with Jari-Matti and Petter but then we had a puncture which lost us time," he continued.

"Once we had th꧂e puncture and I was down I just took it quite safe and easy. In the end I could have pushed for the last day and a half ✃and I might have beaten Petter after his two punctures, but you can never know that and we might have got a puncture anyway so that's life.

"It's been a good weekend though as we were on Petter's pace before the puncture yesterday. I've driven a good rally and it's good to get some points. I think Pette💃r and I are pretty close on tarmac at the moment. He's got an extra point or two out of these last two rallies but we've had a little bit of bad luck. I think we are both pushing quite hard."