Andreas Aigner is well placed to secure the Production World Rally Championship title after the opening day of Wales Rally GB.

The Red Bull Rallye Team driver made it through a challenging opening day in the Welsh forests to make it to the end of the first day in third place in the PWRC standings.

Aigner headed into the final event of the season in second place in the championship race behind Juho Hanninen, but saw his rival run into problems on SS6 when he was forced to retire from the first day after stopping in a water splash.

With Aigner holding third place at the end of day one, he would secure the title ahead of Hanninen, but the Red Bull man was quick to point out that there is still a long way to go before the finish.

“I'm very satisfied with today's sequence of events, of course, even though we also had our share of tricky situations – like everybody else, I suppose,” he said. “But we've escaped serious incidents. Now I hope that we'll be able to keep up the pace until the end.”

Team boss Raimund Baumschlager agreed that the situation looks good heading into day two but was also keen to not start celebrating too early.

“Obviously the current situation is looking very good for us,” he said. “But I'm warning anyone of rejoicing too early. We mustn't forget that Andreas still has to finish the rally – and no worse than in third position.”