"I am very happy with the scratch. I've solved the clutch problem, but now the car is very unstable at times," said Francois, who has been drafted in again by the OMV Kronos
Citroen WRT, following his outstanding drive in Germany, when he finished second overall.
Of the rest
Subaru's
Chris Atkinson and
Stobart Ford's
Jari-Matti Latvala round out the eight, followed by Xavier Pons and
Henning Solberg, the latter now more than 2 minutes off the final drivers' points' paying position.
“I'm not in a good position in the standings, but I'm still very motivated,” said Henning.
In the Junior World Rally Championship category,
Urmo Aava now leads, having overhauled his
Suzuki team-mate, Per-Gunnar Andersson in SS3. Urmo took both JRC stages wins in the middle loop and is now 3.7 seconds up on P-G.
Martin Prokop remains third in his Citroen C2, albeit now half a minute further back, while Renault Clio runners, Kallle Pinomaki and Jozef Beres complete the JRC top five, the latter over 1.5 minutes off the leaders.
In terms of retirees the second loop claimed one big scalp, namely Manfred Stohl, who went off the road in SS3. He rolled his Kronos-run Xsara 4 kilometres into the test and will not be able to re-join the fold on Saturday under the SupeRally as the damage done to the car is too severe.
Stohl was not the only driver to be caught out in Querol 2 though, as Skoda privateer Jan Kopecky also had problems and stopped in the stage. It is not yet known if the Czech will be able to re-start.
For the record, Stohl is the second ‘works' retirement, as Munchi's Ford WRT leader, Luis-Perez Companc went out in SS2.
The action now resumes at 16.48 hours local time, with the 22.43 kilometre-run through El Lloar-La Figuera, SS5. Pratdip, SS6, then follows at 18.00 hours local time to bring the day's proceedings to a close.
