[Speaking in the mid-day service] "I have found a good level of grip with the tyres now and I’m starting to learn what they can do. I’m just trying to stay neat and tidy in the stages as it is so easy to over-push on this surface and lose time. We had a problem with the intercom at the start of stage 11 and the volume control wasn’t working for most of the stage but again today my times have been consistent and I’m not having to push very hard for them."
Henning Solberg [Stobart VK M-Sport Ford WRT]:
"Today felt much better than yesterday especially on the second pass of the stages. My times were much faster on the afternoon loop as we made a few small changes in service and they helped to give me more confidence. It’s not easy to go fast right from the start especially when we don’t get to do much testing. I managed to get some time back on Matthew today and it looks like we have a bit of a race tomorrow but there are still quite a lot of kilometres left and we can’t afford to make a mistake on the last day."
[Speaking in the mid-day service] "We had some good stages this morning and will make a few small changes now in service. Yesterday the second pass went well for me so hopefully we can improve on our times this afternoon. The feeling on the difficult surface is coming now but still we need to concentrate and not make any mistakes or do anything silly."
Federico Villagra [Munchi’s Ford WRT]:
[Speaking in the mid-day service] "The car is okay and I have a good feeling now. I had a problem with the brakes on the second part of SS9."
Khalid Al-Qassimi [BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT]:
"I started well this morning and had good pace. But at the end of a long straight in stage 10 I hit the brakes, nothing happened and I banked the car. Thankfully there wasn't much damage and I put the car into neutral, got out and completed the stage. My confidence was a bit low after that but I was able to build it back up again."
Gigi Galli [Stobart VK M-Sport Ford WRT]:
"Malcolm gave me some good advice this morning and obviously it’s helped as I managed to get three fastest times this afternoon. I think that, before, I was attacking too hard trying to find the times but now I’m driving more smoothly and it feels a lot better like this. The car has really been great today and now I’m starting to feel the tyres working with me. I feel more relaxed today and I’m starting to get a good flow with the stages."
