[Speaking in the mid-day service] "I am pleased with my morning. I had a bit of understeer through the first two stages but I managed to cure that to an extent after modifying my set-up before the start of SS3. The conditions weren't easy, with a cocktail of mud, dry portions and some churned up sections that were quite slippery. It's been a positive start, however, and we have succeeded in emerging in second place, behind Seb and ahead of our rivals. We now need to keep up the same pace."
Petter Solberg [Subaru WRT]:
"I'm pleased with third and it's very good for Subaru and for the whole team. This morning I wasn't so comfortable but this afternoon was much better and I was really able to push. The team have been working hard and things are going well. A podium would be very, very good but there's so many things happening on this rally. But at the end of the day it's good and I am happy with third. Tomorrow we will have to push very hard to keep the third place, but I am feeling good at the moment."
[Speaking in the mid-day service] "The stages were quite rutted for me this morning, but I didn't have any real problems in them. They're quite soft though and there's still a bit of water in places so they'll be worse this afternoon. I think they'll be quite badly rutted. There are a lot of rocks in places as well so it's not easy. We've seen some punctures this morning for other crews, so just like before here it's so easy to go off."
Mikko Hirvonen [BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT]:
"It was a strange day. My feeling with the car was good and the handling was fine but when I tried to control my speed it didn't work. I've not had the pace and I don't know why because I've not been over-driving. I want to go and check the data from my car to try to find where I'm losing time. Jari-Matti has a slightly different set-up so I'll check his data too. It was slippery all day but it wasn't just me that was affected by that. It's still possible to get to second, which is the minimum I want from this rally."
