"I’m happy both with the car and with my driving on gravel especially here where the roads are so difficult," noted the Spaniard.
Further down the leaderboard, OMV Kronos Citroen’s Manfred Stohl had a solid day and brought his Xsara home in sixth spot, albeit more than 40 seconds behind Sordo and Henning. Manfred reported no problems and was content with his pace.
Subaru’s Xavier Pons and Munchi’s team leader,
Luis Perez Companc round out the top eight, although the former said his
Subaru was 'difficult' to drive.
At least Pons completed the leg though for the Subaru WRT, the same could not be said of his team-mates,
Petter Solberg and
Chris Atkinson. Both had problems in the second loop and retired from the leg.
Petter suffered from a gear selection problem after SS5 and had to stop, while Atkinson crashed out in the next test.
The Aussie will not be able to re-start on Saturday as his Impreza suffered too much damage.
Gronholm will also not be able to re-join the fold on day 2, as his off in SS4, when he hit a tree stump, damaged the roll cage and as such he cannot continue.
Petter however will be back out, albeit now way out of contention, in 64th place overall, more than 20 minutes off the final place in the top ten, which is currently held by
Federico Villagra.
Villagra is on course for the final manufacturers’ point in the #2 Munchi’s Ford WRT car, 35 seconds behind
Stobart Ford third driver,
Matthew Wilson, who is ninth.
In the
FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category, Fumio Nutahara ended the day on top, having inherited the lead in SS7, when runaway PWRC championship leader, Toshi Arai ran into problems. It is not yet known if Arai will be able to continue or not.
Nutahara enjoyed a trouble-free day in his Lancer and in the end finished up more than 50 seconds up on Gabriel Pozzo.
Armindo Araujo completes the provisional PWRC podium, a further 20 seconds or so back, while Evgeniy Vertunov came in fourth, followed by Takuma Kamada and Leszek Kuzaj.
