In the
FIA Production Car World Rally Championship category Andreas Aigner leads having taken top spot on the final loop. The Austrian, who has won the last two PWRC events and who currently leads the race for the Production crown, ended the day narrowly in front of Patrik Sandell's Peugeot 207 S2000.
Uwe Nittel is third in the class, followed by fellow Mitsubishi users Martin Prokop and Eyvind Brynildsen. Evgeniy Vertunov is the top
Subaru in the PWRC, currently sixth overall, 8.2 seconds off P5.
In terms of retirements a number of drivers' had problems and went out, including most noticeably
Citroen privateer
Urmo Aava and Subaru number two driver,
Chris Atkinson.
Aava went out in SS3 after damaging his cars suspension, while Atkinson retired after SS6 - again with suspension problems. Atkinson will re-start on Saturday under the SupeRally format.
"We weren't pushing too hard this morning, and things were looking good," Atkinson, who had been running ninth. "We would have been in the points by the end of the day. The plan was to make no mistakes and we did that, so it's a shame to be stopped by something that's out of our hands. We'll use tomorrow to do a little bit of testing and see how the car feels, and then see how quick we can push."
The action now continues on Saturday and day two revisits the same territory in the maze of roads that zig-zag through the Anatolian mountains. After restarting at 08.30 hours [local time], drivers face seven stages covering 137.66 kilometres before returning to Kemer for the final overnight halt. The last test is a second pass over the 2.60 kilometre super special stage at Antalya's Akdeniz University.
