Car 2, Latvala/Anttila
“I haven't had the best feeling for a couple of months but I’m really happy to have the feeling back and enjoy attacking. We ran the soft tyres this morning and it was the right choice. They did their job and are now on the limit. For the afternoon, maybe the hard tyres. Possibly a mix but more like four hards. I think the last stage of the loop I was giving it almost everything. The two before that, I can improve a lot.”
Car 3, Meeke/Nagle
“Only Thierry was conserving tyres. We saved two tyres last night [two hard, two soft] but this morning the right choice was soft. But somewhere in the weekend, we will have to take hard tyres, as we don't have enough soft. There are long stages tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see who does what. On the stages, they were really nice. My notes seemed to work well and I really enjoyed them.”
Car 7, Neuville/Gilsoul
“I am concerned with the time I lost in the first stage but it wasn’t just the tyres. I made some mistakes and went straight on on the tarmac section. But on the other stages, I made good runs. I dropped some time to Dani on the hard compound but I hope it will pay off. Tomorrow the strategy will be different so we will see. I think this afternoon everyone will have the same choice but I think tomorrow, I will have the best choice.”
Car 9, Mikkelsen/ Floene
“The feeling in the car is fantastic. It's not easy to be one of the first cars on the road but I think we have done a faultless morning and hard to do more than we have done. It will be very interesting to see what happens this afternoon. A lot depends on getting the tyre choice right. I believe I have a good strategy.”
Car 20, Paddon/Kennard
“The last stage was OK – it didn’t feel so good but was OK. Obviously we were playing the tyre game. I concentrated a bit too much on looking after them and on the last one, I went a bit harder. I think maybe the tier talk is mind games. I just want to forget about tyres and concentrate on the driving. The stages were maybe a harder base than I was expecting.”
Car 31, Al Rajhi/Orr
“It’s been a good morning. It has been a while since we were on a WRC stage and we are coming back step by step. I think I can go faster but need to build up. It is nice to see so many drivers in WRC2. I am happy – everything is OK, the car is OK. On the second loop, I can fight to try to win the two stages.”
Car 36, Kruuda/ Järveoja
“The morning we had a clean drive with no mistakes The first stage was horrible – big rocks and it wasn’t easy to keep the car on the road. On the last corner I spun and stalled the engine. When I saw the time, I was surprised. When I saw my tyres were gone, I took the second one slow and then on the third, went flat out and won that as well.”
Car 40, Ketomaa/Lindstrom
“If I damaged the car, I would admit it. This time I did not hit anything. I went on the brakes and the car started to go to the right side. The compression strut snapped. The first stage the pop-off valve was open all the time. The second one was Ok – it only did it once and the third one was OK.”
Car 42, Al-Attiyah/Baumel
“I am happy to be here. We have a really good start to 2015 and out plan is to win this rally. It looks like it is going well for us and I hope to keep going like this. The stages are really hard – everyone is thinking they will be very smooth but when we got there, they were more like the Acropolis Rally! ”
Car 43, Tidemand/Axelsson
“It’s going well. The first two stages were OK but on the last one, we lost the brakes. The car is really well. We want to finish the rally and get experience – for me and the team. They want to collect a lot of data so it is important to finish. The stages are tricky but it is good training. I like it – it is really good fun. Some places you can push and others you can be careful.”
Car 50, Grondal/Eilertsen
“We had to take a penalty [to prevent catching car in front] but we had a puncture on the first stage. On the first one, we were three minutes faster so would have caught the car in front. Shame we have to do things like that. I am very happy with everything. I drive the roads back home that I know and here, I have to drive 100% on pace notes, so I am happy with the speeds. WRC2 is so competitive so I try to get closer to the front guys.”
Car 70, Lappi/Ferm
“I’m quite tired now. It was very busy on the road section. On the first one, we had a problem but I didn't know what so the whole first stage, we had a lack of power. I tried to fix it but couldn’t. The second stage, it was working, so I managed to do something.”
Car 75, Al-Kuwari/Clarke
“We had a steady start this morning, We had one puncture on the second stage but it didn't really slow us. We are playing the long game – we’ll let the others go and we will do our own thing and see where we are.”