Sata Rally Açores: Day 2 review

Reigning IRC Drivers Champion Juho Hanninen continues to lead the Sata Rally Açores as Leg 2 of the rally draws to a close. Things are very tight at the top, however, with fellow Skoda driver Andreas Mikkelsen, second, has slashed the Finn's lead to only 1.3 secs after he stalled on the day's final stage.

Third is last year's winner Bruno Magalhaes is third, 49.8 secs off the lead. He said he's happy with his performance today, but had some problems with his rear dampers on the final loop of today's stages.

The Portuguese driver, who will start 3^rd on the road tomorrow as part of the ICC’s road-order deciding plan, said: "Our competitors are too strong and, for our part, we are doing what we can. We are moving very quickly, we maintain our place on the podium, a goal that is far from easy. For us it is an excellent result in this second day of the rally and we are very pleased with our performance."

Skoda Motorsport's other driver, Jan Kopecky, is fourth overnight. The Czech is 54.7 secs off his team-mate's pace, citing some confidence issues as his problem. He has a good cushion over Championship leader Bryan Bouffier, a 1 min 25.4 secs cushion to be exact. Bouffier maintains a 52.7 sec lead over Group N leader Ricardo Moura, who is sitting in sixth.

Patrick Sandell would be in sixth, but a first-time timing error from co-driver Staffan Parmander, dropping the pairing to seventh. They clocked into SS9 early, giving themselves a 1 min penalty. Sandell now sits 8 secs behind Moura.

The rest of the Top 10 is filled with the second, third and fourth placed Group N drivers, Vitor Lopez, Vitor Pascoal and Sérgio Silva. Second in Group N, Lopez, sits 1 min 36 secs off the pace of the flying Evo X of Moura.

Fumio Nutahara is 11th in the sole-surviving Impreza R4. His team-mate Toshi Arai was 10^th overall overnight before master switch problems on SS4 lead to his retirement. He will restart tomorrow, and is under orders to 'show the pace' of the car. Nutahara is now 7 mins 45 secs off the lead and is over 1 min 30 sec off a Top 10 position.

Peugeot UK's Guy Wilks crashed out of sixth place on the final stage of today's opening loop, SS 6. He broke his front right wish-bone in the impact, and it is not known at this present moment whether of not he will rejoin the running tomorrow.

Paulo Maciel holds a comfortable gap of 1 min 15.5 secs over Jean-Michal Raoux in the IRC 2WD standings. Carlos Costa is a further 58 secs behind Raoux. Harry Hunt is fifth overnight in his DS3 R3T, 5 mins 35 secs off the lead. He dropped 6 mins on the fog-stricken SS6 when he slid off the road.