Toni Gardemeister was eighth and currently completes the provisional points' scorers on his debut with the Suzuki SX4 WRC. He had some intercom problems but still managed to post two stage times in the top ten – much to his delight.

Of the rest, Jean-Marie Cuoq and Frederic Romeyer round out the top ten, both in privately entered Peugeots, the former using a 307 and the latter making do with the older 206.

Khalid Al-Qassimi finished the leg just outside the top ten, less than 9 seconds off Romeyer in the 'third' BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT entry and then came two-time Junior World Rally champion, Per-Gunnar Andersson, Britain's Matthew Wilson and Henning Solberg.

Olivier Burri heads the battle for the Group N honours in 15th, with Patrick Artru 16th, Latvala 17th and Ales Broccoli 18th in his Renault Clio.

The action now resumes on Friday morning when competitors head into the Ardeche mountains - south-west of Valence. Two identical clockwise loops of three stages lay in wait, totalling around 117 competitive kilometres. SS3 gets underway at 08.24 hours local time.

More to follow then...