Thierry Neuville (3rd) said:

Photo:D.Darrall

“This morning has been OK. We lost a bit of time in Sweet Lamb [SS5] – about five seconds in four kilometres which we couldn’t explain. There wasn’t really an excuse for that so we must do better on the second pass.

“We were quite close to the leaders on the first stage [SS4], setting the second fastest time, but they are setting a very fast pace now. On the last stage [SS6] I lost all the confidence. I couldn’t imagine how slippery it actually was so we just concentrated on not making a mistake. If we stay in this position, we are still second in the championship so all is good.”
Mads Østberg (4th) said:

“I’m not 100 per cent happy with the set-up yet, but we made changes for all three stages and it is good to see that we are going in the right direction. We need to try and think clearly and make the right decisions. I can already feel an improvement with the changes we made and, as you can see from the times, we have been faster straight away. We’re not exactly where we want to be just yet, but we are certainly getting there.”

Evgeny Novikov (5th) said:

“We’re still having some issues with the launch at the stage start, but honestly it doesn’t lose us too much time – maybe half a second or so. We were pushing on the first two stages [SS4 and SS5] but the third one [SS6] was very slippery. As always, we are doing our best and trying to set some good times.”

Elfyn Evans (1st in WRC 2) said:

“The first stage [SS4] was very good for us until it got stopped – the pace was good in there. Sweet Lamb [SS5] was tricky so we just tried to make it through unscathed because I have some bad memories of that one from two years ago! Then on the last one [SS6], we had no grip whatsoever; we found ourselves going wide in a few places and not driving the way we like so we lost a bit of time in there. Now we just need to continue like this and see what we can do second time around.”