"After the morning stages, I thought that the roads for the second run would be quite cut-up and I was right. The biggest problem I had this afternoon was mud coming up over the front of the car and onto the windscreen. The wipers cleared it but it took a moment and that distracted me from the following corners. I think for the second run tomorrow, I will raise the car to get more ground clearance and try to stop this.
"I know I wasn’t pushing too hard this afternoon, as there is so much to learn here. It takes a few attempts at a rally like this to begin to be competitive – the drivers here know the conditions like I know the desert! The corners all feel like they need to be driven in different ways and the key is learning which is the right way every time. But I am very happy to be here and am looking forward to the rest of the event."
Daniel Sordo [Citroen Total WRT]:
"I knew it wouldn't be easy to recover the five minute time penalty we were given before the start for putting in a new engine. I therefore chose a pace that would enable me to find my marks again on ice and check my pacenotes. Once I began to feel confident, I was able to start pushing harder and I felt quite comfortable, so that's very encouraging for tomorrow."
Chris Atkinson [Subaru WRT]:
"The conditions were very hard today. The slide into the bank was quite a surprise for me. I wasn’t feeling entirely comfortable with the car in the conditions, which were a mixture of snow and gravel and so made the level of grip tricky. We would normally have made some changes at the midday service, but here we are only allowed to change tyres and refuel (in a remote service) so there’s not much you can do. The roads are so narrow here, and we can’t use the snow banks as they’re too soft. They’re very fast, so if you step a little off-line there’s just no room to sort it out before you’re off. Our focus now is on gaining manufacturer points by the end of Sunday. We’ll make some changes tonight and start again tomorrow."
