Al-Attiyah tops Cyprus superspecial

The Intercontinental Rally Challenge returnee and World Rally Championship regular outpaced IRC frontrunner Andreas Mikkelsen's Hankook Ford by 0.6 seconds, while Czech driver Jaromir Tarabus impressed as he took third place, 0.2s down on Mikkelsen's time.

But there have already been problems for Tarabus' Czech Ford team-mate Martin Prokop, whose first IRC appearance of 2010 immediately went awry when his Ford developed a differential problem. Production WRC frontrunner Prokop lost 12.2s on the superspecial and fears there will be greater delays incurred in service tomorrow.

Bryan Bouffier is the top Peugeot in fourth, ahead of fellow 207 driver Franz Wittmann, while Lebanese driver Roger Feghali holds sixth in the only S2000 Skoda in the event.

Sometime works Ford WRC driver Roman Kresta is top Group N driver at present, holding eighth in his Mitsubishi.

With the IRC title battles already resolved, many of the season-long frontrunners are skipping the Cyprus finale - including all the rally winners so far this year. The works Skoda teams and the Kronos Peugeots are among the high-profile absentees.

Pos  Driver             Car         Time/Gap
 1.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Ford         2m21.7s
 2.  Andreas Mikkelsen  Ford          + 0.6s
 3.  Jaromir Tarabus    Ford          + 0.8s
 4.  Bryan Bouffier     Peugeot       + 3.1s
 5.  Franz Wittmann     Peugeot       + 3.8s
 6.  Roger Feghali      Skoda         + 6.5s
 7.  Daniel Oliveira    Peugeot       + 8.4s
 8.  Roman Kresta       Mitsubishi    + 9.6s
 9.  Nicos Thomas       Peugeot      + 10.9s
10.  Martin Prokop      Ford         + 12.2s