"There was a small fire because fluid dripped onto the exhaust. The wheel was ripped off and bounced onto the roof of a house which was just below the level of the road. It bounced back onto the mountainside before rebounding onto the wall of the house and missing the kitchen window by about half a metre. It damaged a few tiles on the roof but the owner wasn't angry - he was quite excited by it all!"
Nicolas Bernardi [Suzuki WRT]: [retired from leg 1 after SS4 - no power]
"We had no problems at all in the morning, which was extremely encouraging but to be honest we were not pushing really hard. It felt good to set times so close to the top 10 - but this was not at all the objective. On SS4 I noticed a warning light that said the car was overheating, and I called the team to ask for advice. Unfortunately the line was extremely bad and it was not easy to describe the warning light that we had seen. Rather than risk any further engine damage that could compromise our testing campaign, we decided to switch it off. The ironic thing is that this was completely unnecessary. We've learnt a lot of lessons today - but this was not one that we expected!"
[Speaking in the mid-day service] "It's nice to have the WRC dream on the road. The car hasn't given any trouble at all this morning. All I wanted to do was come through the stages. I was quite steady in the first one and then went a bit more in the second. The car is easy to drive and feels fantastic."
Alessandro Bettega [Stobart M-Sport Ford WRT]: [retired from event in SS5 - went off the road]
[Speaking in the mid-day service] "A good morning with no problems. I am just trying to acquaint myself with the speed which is normal in these cars. The car is easy to drive up to a certain point, but that last 10 per cent is really not easy."
Team principals:
Guy Frequelin [Citroen Total WRT - team principal]:
"It was a fierce fight this afternoon. After fine-tuning the setup of their Citroen C4 WRC, Sebastien and Daniel put in a magnificent run over today's last three stages to bridge the gap and then pull out a small lead on which they will need to try to build tomorrow. After a promising start, Dani Sordo and Marc Marti didn't take the same tyres as Sebastien for the second loop. Their challenge tomorrow will be to try to catch Marcus Gronholm."
