“I’ve made no mistakes and we will see what will happen tomorrow with the road position,”
Loeb's team-mate Ogier has Loeb in his sights tomorrow, saying that he is the most important driver this weekend for him to beat. Ogier employed tactics on SS2 to drop behind his team-mate, and thus give him a better road position.
Highest of the Finns and works Fords Jari-Matti Latvala is third, just over 4 secs behind leader Loeb. He did admit that he was a little too conservative over SS1, and dropped a little time on SS2 to get himself a better road position for tomorrow.
“I was cautious on the opening stage and made a couple of small mistakes on the final test but nothing that cost time. All I'm concentrating on is tomorrow as I don't want to put extra pressure on myself, because this rally brings enough of that already. There was great excitement and pressure before the start, but now the event is under way I can relax and focus on my driving.” he said.
Jari Ketomaa took a sensational fastest time over SS1, but said he dropped time on SS2 to give himself a better position to attack tomorrow. He starts fourth tomorrow, with Petter Solberg starting fifth in his PSWRT DS3 WRC.
Fastest of the new MINI's, Dani Sordo, is sixth. An intercom issue didn't prevent him taking second fastest over the stage, and is 14.3 secs off the lead. Ott Tanak is seventh, and leading the S-WRC, in his Ford Fiesta S2000. Rounding out the Top 10 are Mads Ostberg, who said he was too cautious over today's stages, Kris Meeke, who, in his own words, is taking part in a 'high-speed recce', owing to lack of experience. In 10th, and second in S-WRC, is Juho Hanninen. Hanninen is 8.5 secs behind Tanak in the S-WRC and 25.8 secs behind Loeb in the overall standings.
Local hero (literally, he's from Jyvaskyla), Mikko Hirvonen, is 36th overall and over 2 mins off the lead. He slid off the stage on SS1 & hit a tree. The Fiesta RS WRC lost all power & drive for a moment, but he got going again, albeit with damaged rear suspension and brakes. He has said he will restart tomorrow and will drive 'flat out' to the finish.
“It’s disappointing because it’s the second year in a row that I’ve had problems early in my home rally, although last year was due to a crash. I wanted to fight for a win and after a strong test last week, I felt that was something I could achieve. All I can do now is drive flat out through the final two days and see how far I can climb back up the order.” Hirvonen said.
Matti Rantanen, who was expected to do well on this event, crashed 7kms into SS2. After a fast right-hander, he slid into a ditch but kept going to try to get out of the ditch, but he hit something in the ditch, and rolled the car, severely damaging the front of the car. He is unsure if he will restart tomorrow.
In the support classes, as already mentioned, Ott Tanak leads the S-WRC, with Juho Hanninen second and Martin Prokop is third, over 21secs off the lead. Jarkko Nikara holds the P-WRC lead by 0.5 sec over Patrick Flodin. Hayden Paddon, who broke his differential during Shakedown, is third, 31.1 secs behind Nikara. Alastair Fisher leads the WRC Academy by a comfortable 20secs over, Viktor Henriksson. Our very own Craig Breen is third overnight, 22.7secs behind Fisher.
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