Urmo Aava leads the Junior Rally Championship category following day two of the Rally d'Italia on Saturday, more than a minute up on his
Suzuki team-mate, Per Gunnar Andersson.
Aava began the leg 8.3 seconds up on P-G, but fell behind in SS8, after Andersson put in charge. The Estonian then lost more time on SS9, when he slid wide on a slippery right-hand corner and hit a tree, damaging the rear bodywork on his Swift.
Going into the afternoon, Andersson appeared to have the advantage until he picked up a puncture in SS10 and lost more than two minutes. That handed the lead back to Urmo and he held on to top spot throughout the remainder of the day.
“I changed the set-up of the car today to try and find some more traction at the front, but this made the car quite nervous and loose at the rear – which is what caused me to slide wide and hit the tree on SS9,” reflected the Estonian.
“The roads were much more slippery than yesterday but really we were very lucky: it was quite a hard impact and the damage could have been much worse. The Suzuki Swift is clearly a very strong car! There is still a very long way to go, so nothing is decided yet.”
P-G was philosophical about the puncture on the 29.31 kilometre-run through Loelle: “In the Junior Championship, your luck can come and go very quickly! I was pleased to take the lead in the morning, but of course the puncture on SS10 meant that I lost it again very quickly,” he added. “Ironically, the stages today were much less rocky than yesterday but that's the way it goes sometimes.
“It's really not too bad though as my championship lead gives me a comfortable margin and means that I do not have to push too hard. We also had a small brake problem but apart from that everything was fine, so I'm feeling quite optimistic of a good result.”
Martin Prokop meanwhile remains on course for third for
Citroen, albeit now over 5 minutes off Aava. The Czech was happy with his performance and admitted that there was no chance he could match the Suzukis.
![Martin Prokop (CZE) / Jan Tomanek (CZE), Citroen C2 S1600 [Junior RC]. Rally de Portugal, 29th March - 1st April 2007.](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/306076.jpg)
