"It was difficult in the braking areas and the loose gravel meant there was no traction accelerating out of the bends. I hit a small fence at the first braking point in stage two, but it wasn't a problem."
Of the rest,
Petter Solberg came in fifth - despite having to struggle with brake problems - while
Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson was sixth, followed by
Matthew Wilson and
Henning Solberg.
Gigi Galli and Ricardo Trivino round out the top ten, the former having been third until he got stuck in a ditch in SS3 and lost around 2 minutes, something that dropped him down to ninth.
In the Junior WRC category Sebastien Ogier took the lead from the start and now heads Patrik Sandell by 23.2 seconds. Jaan Molder is third in the Junior class, a further 5.9 seconds back, with Michal Kosciuszko and Aaron Burkart fourth and fifth.
To date there have been three notable retirements - namely
Citroen's Dani Sordo, Jan Kopecky and
Conrad Rautenbach. Sordo went out in SS1, when he broke his front suspension, while Kopecky was sidelined in the same test in his Fiat Grande Punto S2000 with engine problems. Rautenbach stopped in SS3 - it is not yet known why the Zimbabwean was forced out.
Toni Gardemeister also had a bad start to the event and while he did complete all three stages in his Suzuki SX4 WRC car he was way off the pace due to throttle problems. He finished SS3 more than 15 minutes off a place in the top ten.
The action now resumes at 13.02 hours local time, when all three of this morning's stages will be repeated. The leg is then concluded with two runs through the 2.21 kilometre super special.
More to follow later...
