Notable retirements:
Chris Atkinson [Subaru WRT]: Retired on SS4 after crashing
"OK, today has not been perfect, we're not as quick as we wanted to be and seventh isn't what we were aiming for, but it's not been so bad. The car is getting better on tarmac. There are still a few things to fine-tune to get the speed we're missing, but we keep working on it this weekend and I think if we can get there we'll be ok. We're still lacking a little confidence in these conditions, but then we haven't done much testing. People were changing tyre compounds from the morning to the afternoon, from hard to soft, so for me I don't think our tyre choice made so much difference. Some areas we lost a bit, but some weren't so bad so it pretty much worked out. Tomorrow will be difficult and we're a little way down the order, but we'll keep working hard and improving as much as we can."
Matthew Wilson [Stobart VK M-Sport Ford WRT]: Retired on SS5 with gearbox problems
“It is a shame we had to retire today after doing so well. The times were looking good and we had some really promising splits on that last stage before we retired. This is the sport sometimes though and tomorrow we will have a repaired car and a perfect road position so I'm looking forward to setting some more fast times. Again though, it is disappointing because we were in a position to score good points for both the team and the championship.”
Team principals:
Olivier Quesnel [Citroen Total WRT - team principal]:
"Both our cars are within half a minute of the overnight leaders, so I am relatively happy with the way the day has gone. Sébastien and Daniel limited the damage brilliantly and they could even have been in front this evening had it not been for a minor mechanical problem. They will try to recover the lead tomorrow. Dani and Marc put in the sort of drive that we asked of them. Their objective was to finish as close as possible to the front-runners and they are currently third, so our overnight positions aren't bad at all. There is still a very long way to go and a great deal can still happen. I'm also pleased with the performance of
Urmo Aava and Kuldar Sikk who are sixth in the Citroën Sport Technologies C4 WRC."
Malcolm Wilson [Stobart VK M-Sport Ford WRT - team boss]:
“It has been a great first day by François after such a long break since his last gravel event in a World Rally car. He has picked up the pace over the course of the day and is now in a position to score good points for the Stobart team. It's a shame Matthew has picked up his problem today. He was showing good speed and setting impressive split times especially on the first stage this afternoon but I'm sure he will come back tomorrow and continue this form.”
David Richards [Subaru WRT - managing director]:
“There's no getting away from the disappointment of losing one of our cars on the first day of the rally. “The remainder of the event for Chris will form an extended test programme to get more mileage under his belt, whilst at the same time we'll use what we can from this to help Petter.”
Paul Wilding [Suzuki WRT - team manager]:
