Suzuki's Urmo Aava leads the FIA Junior Rally Championship category following day 1 of the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse, the final round in the series.

Aava took over the lead in the penultimate test of the day, when he overhauled the Citroen C2 S1600 of Martin Prokop.

The Estonian then stretched the gap in SS6 to finish the leg 8.8 seconds in front. More significantly though, he is 16.9 seconds up on his team-mate and chief rival for the JRC crown, Per-Gunnar Andersson, who had to settle for P3. If they were to finish in there current positions Aava would take the JRC title.

"Today has not been too bad - I've only been pushing hard in the places where I think that it's possible to get away with it," explained Urmo. "Above all I've tried to avoid punctures by taking clean lines.

"I've been pleasantly surprised by the stages here today though: there is not too much loose gravel on the corners, which is not always the case on an asphalt rally. I think we will try and keep the same pace tomorrow and see what happens."

P-G in contrast to Aava was understandably not at all pleased: "With two people ahead of me at the end of the day, everything has not gone to plan," he stated. "I am pushing hard and driving flat-out, but I am not taking risks in what I'm doing.

"I have been thinking about the driving and I feel there is more time to come from me in the longer corners. I am coming out of the long corners and there's still some road left that I haven't used, which means I could have gone quicker through there.

"This is nothing to do with the car, the car is working really well, it's to do with my head and my right foot. I will be pushing harder tomorrow. The gap is not too bad to Urmo, but it's a gap I have to change."

Prokop meanwhile blamed a scare on SS4 for his lack of pace in SS5 and SS6: "We had a small problem on the fourth stage, where we slid wide coming out of a left-hander," he confirmed. "The side of the car hit the barrier. Luckily, we hit it square, so it didn't damage the car, other than a couple of dents at the front and rear.

"Then, in the next stage, I was too cautious. I should have pushed harder than I did. I thought the time was okay for the last stage, it felt like we had gone well, but we still dropped back to Urmo Aava."