“I feel confident with my C4 WRC, but today's roads are even quicker than those we visited yesterday. We'll try not to drop any time this afternoon. In fact, it would nice if we could claw back a few more seconds."
Further down the order, Sebastien Ogier is now fourth, having gained two spots in the 30.09 kilometre Wydminy 1 stage, when he leapfrogged both the Solberg brothers and set the third best time for the second stage in succession.
"Yesterday's run did a great deal for our confidence,” said Ogier. “This morning, I felt particularly comfortable from the start, and that meant I was able to push a little harder. My aim was to catch at least one of the Solbergs, and we ended up passing both of them. There's still a long way to go, but we will try to keep up the same sort of pace."
Henning Solberg is next up, 11.7 seconds back in his Stobart Ford Focus, while his brother Petter dropped two places to P6 following a poor time in the last stage before service at Mikolajki.
“I am very happy with the car and it's working very well today,” said Henning. “There's still a long way to go, but we are going in the right direction.
“It was good to get ahead of Petter but now I have to get past Ogier. I'm driving fast but I still want to get fourth place so I need to go even harder. I drove better on the second pass yesterday so I have to do that again today.”
Of the rest, Britain's Matthew Wilson lies seventh, albeit a minute or so down on Petter, followed by local hero and three-time Rally Poland winner, Krzysztof Holowczyc and then Conrad Rautenbach and Mads Ostberg.
“The car is perfect. I spoke to Malcolm Wilson last night and he advised me to be more precise and less aggressive and it is working very well today,” reflected Holowczyc. “I am really enjoying the fast stages, but I am a bit too slow in some of the technical parts.
“The atmosphere is amazing. When you see all of the people on the last five kilometres of the last stage it is unbelievable. I have never seen so many people before and I am really taking power from them. When you see that it makes you push harder.”
In the Junior World Rally Championship category, Michal Kosciuszko now leads in his Suzuki Swift S1600, after Kevin Abbring lost time in SS10. Kosciuszko returned to service E with a 17.6 second cushion, while his chief championship rival, Martin Prokop remains third.
