“Today has been tough but I’m pleased with second place,” Chris reflected. “I made a mistake on stage eight and we lost quite a bit of time so the gap to Petter is much smaller now. You really kick yourself when you give away that much time, but that’s what can happen in these conditions.”
Petter was also reasonably pleased, even if a broken front shock absorber slowed him in the afternoon: "We had some problems today, like everyone else, but we are in third place so it’s not bad at all. I didn’t feel comfortable in the conditions on the last loop of stages today and we lost a lot of time, but we will make some more changes tonight and then keep pushing hard tomorrow,” he added.
Next up and also very much in touch with the battling Subarus is
Stobart Ford man
Gigi Galli. The Italian slipped behind
Daniel Sordo after picking up a 20 second penalty in SS4, but put in a charge to get back in front in the afternoon, posting two second quickest times and taking a stage win in SS7.
Sordo remained in front though until SS8, when power steering problems left him 30 seconds off the pace and dropped him to P5. He subsequently finished day one 19.2 seconds back, but hasn’t given up on getting into the top three.
Further down the order
Federico Villagra is sixth for the Munchi’s team, albeit more than 2.5 minutes off Sordo, while fellow Ford runners
Matthew Wilson and
Jari-Matti Latvala complete the points’ scorers.
Latvala would have been a lot higher up if he hadn’t made an error in SS2 and rolled his Focus. That cost him 9 minutes and dropped him from second to 30th. He soon bounced back though, setting the pace in SS3, SS6 and SS9 to haul himself back into the points.
"I've been happy with my speed, I just need to get rid of my mistakes," admitted the
BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT driver.
Of the rest
Conrad Rautenbach is ninth in his privately entered PH-Sport-run
Citroen C4 WRC, while Andreas Aigner rounds out the top ten and is also on course for the Production WRC win.
