Gwyndaf flying in the forests.

Gwyndaf Evans is flying in the Welsh forests in his MG ZR, setting second quickest time in JWRC on SS9, Crychan, and then outpacing the rest with fastest time through the 18.43km of Halfway 1, stage 10, before a delay on the stage caused all the later cars to be awarded the same time, nullifying the Welshman's advantage. Tony Jardine and Maurice Hamilton are also going well in their MG, running 53rd overall with over half the stages complete.

Gwyndaf is sixth of the 1600cc JWRC entries, on line to score his first championship points of the MG ZR's debut season in the highly competitive category. Gwyndaf and co-driver Chris Patterson went through Halfway 1. Gwyndaf also explained why the pair had only been ninth quickest through SS8, Resolfen.

"The MG felt good this morning," said Gwyndaf, "and we were having a excellent run through Resolfen, which is a very, very long stage - we were set to put in a great time when unfortunately we had a puncture on a keep right for a bad left hand corner. We thought we'd get away with driving on the flat but the tyre shredded and we had to stop and change it. That was really disappointing."

Tony commented on condtions on that stage, and how the MG was coping with the rough stages: "Resolfen was like a stage of two halves, the first was very, very slippery, the second, which was kind of in the sunlight, had dried out a bit more and therefore enabled us to get some grip. The same factor dogging us all the time is the damage caused by the holes in the road and the deep ruts. The MG is really taking a hammering - the Network Q Rally GB is all about survival."

This afternoon the cars have a second run through Crychan and Halfway, again run back-to-back with no service between, before returning to Cardiff for their third run through the docklands Super Special stage.