As RallyRACC Rally de España started in style this evening, the Qatar M-Sport crews got off to a solid start. With M-Sport making up more than half of the event’s entry, it may come as no surprise that the Cumbrian firm’s designed and manufactured Ford Fiestas also accounted for 50 per cent of the overall top-ten come the end of Day 1.

Drivers Quotes:

Thierry Neuville (4th) said:

“It was quite a difficult evening for us as I wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable with either the set-up of the car or the pacenotes. We were definitely losing too much time, but I think that that was the best we could have done and we’ll work hard with the team to change the settings for tomorrow and hopefully do better.”

Evgeny Novikov (7th) said:

“This evening has been OK for us. Of course it was interesting to drive in darkness because it has been a long time since we have driven any night stages. From the second stage onwards we were following Thierry’s [Neuville] split times and so far everything is going OK and we are looking forward to tomorrow.”

Mads Østberg (8th) said:

“It has been a challenging first day, but we are here which is the main thing. We have been struggling with the gear-changes, and I don’t think the gearbox option we came up with in testing worked so well for us this evening, but I hope it will be better on tomorrow’s stages.”

Hayden Paddon (9th) said:

“This evening was a challenge, but we got up to speed with the car reasonably quickly and I felt comfortable. We were struggling with the set-up a little so the times aren’t exactly where we want them to be just yet. Nevertheless, we got through this evening and we got some more miles under our belts. Tonight we are going to make the car a bit stiffer so hopefully we can improve a lot tomorrow.”

Nasser Al-Attiyah (12th) said:

“Honestly, it has not been a bad evening for us. I find the night stages quite difficult and we have never driven these stages before so we decided to manage our pace and finish all of the stages without any issues. We know what we have to do tomorrow, so I hope we can make some good progress.”

Elfyn Evans (2nd in WRC 2) said:

“We had a bit of an issue from quite early on in the first stage, but through talking with the team we managed to rectify it and the car was running properly from then on. It was a shame to lose the time to Robert [Kubica] as I was looking forward to really taking the fight to him here this weekend. That said, I think there is certainly a lot more to come from me this weekend and I am really looking forward to tomorrow.”

Team Principal, Malcolm Wilson OBE, said:

“I think all of the drivers have struggled a little with the set-up in these dark conditions, but with some small adjustments, I am sure we will be better placed tomorrow. Despite struggling to find the optimum set-up, Hayden [Paddon] in particular has been very impressive on his debut and I am sure there is more to come from him as we move into tomorrow.

“It’s been a solid start to the rally. All of the cars have run without any issues and that gives us a good base to build on tomorrow.”