"My plan was solely to recover the time that I lost yesterday when I punctured. I took no risks this afternoon but dropped a little time on the final stage by trying too hard and over-driving. It won't be easy being second on the road tomorrow but I'm looking forward to a good battle."
Hirvonen, who had the unwanted position of being first in the start order on Friday, was delighted to reap the benefits of a lower position today and he moved up from P5 to P3.
He now thinks the weather could play a key part in deciding the outcome of the event: "My position tomorrow is better than Loeb and Jari-Matti, and Seb will need to drive flat out as he will be clearing the road for us. I didn't think first on the road would be so bad here, but I struggled yesterday and Loeb did the same today.
"He has a 29sec lead and that's still a big gap but we have a chance tomorrow. Much will depend on whether it is wet or dry," he confirmed.
Gigi Galli is next up and he set top four times in every single test. His only issues were a small spin in SS8 and a heavy impact on SS10, which cracked the windscreen on his Focus causing visibility issues for the remaining two stages of the day.
The
Stobart Ford man now lies 50 seconds off the battle for second and 13.6 seconds up on Dani Sordo in fifth.
"I am very happy with this day as this morning I was worried that our pace would not be fast enough but it was good and we kept things steady during the day," said Gigi.
"The Pirelli tyres have stood up well to the tough conditions and my only mistake today was a small spin where we dropped around 10 seconds. My plan tomorrow is to do what we did today and hopefully we can stay ahead of Sordo; for me this is very important as we don’t get a chance to do any testing."
Sordo for his part, like Loeb, lost out running at the front of the pack and the Spaniard just didn’t have the confidence to really push. He is now hoping he will be able to make up some time on the final day, when he will have a better start position.
