Azores ERC: Robert Kubica takes early lead

Thursday's leg was truncated due to the appalling weather that struck the area the previous day, with SS1 cancelled altogether and SS2 shortened due to the amount of water.

Stage three and the stage four superspecial ran as planned, and a clean sweep of fastest stage times brought Kubica's Citroen to the finish with an encouraging early lead.

Craig Breen had been Kubica's closest challenger on the afternoon's opener, where he was 2.2s slower.

But the Peugeot driver picked up a puncture along the way and with just one spare left, chose to drive carefully through the next two stages.

That left Breen in fourth, with Jan Kopecky's works Skoda now leading the pursuit of Kubica.

Kopecky took second place from top local driver Ricardo Moura on the superspecial.

When the action resumes on Friday morning, just 1.7s will cover Kopecky, Moura and Breen, with Bernardo Sousa 2.2s further back.

Leading positions after SS4:

Pos  Driver           Team/Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Robert Kubica    Citroen            11m13.5s
 2.  Jan Kopecky      Skoda                + 9.7s
 3.  Ricardo Moura    Skoda               + 10.5s
 4.  Craig Breen      Sainteloc Peugeot   + 11.7s
 5.  Bernardo Sousa   Ford                + 13.6s
 6.  Jeremi Ancian    Sainteloc Peugeot   + 18.8s
 7.  Bruno Magalhaes  Peugeot             + 19.4s
 8.  Jan Cerny        Czech Skoda         + 39.8s
 9.  Mark Wallenwein  Skoda               + 43.0s
10.  Jaroslav Orsak   Mitsubishi          + 49.8s