Skodas take early lead in Russia

Finnish gravel expert Hanninen set four out of four fastest stage times, as the field made two runs through the forest stages of Yashino and Kutuzovo, near the host city of Vyborg on the Baltic coast.

His team-mate, Czech asphalt ace Kopecky, passed an in-form Giandomenico Basso's Abarth Grande Punto for second place on SS2, with the Italian dropping to fourth after a puncture on SS3.

A monsoon between the recce days and the start of the event caught the entire field off-guard, however. Watersplashes turned into lakes and there were a host of punctures caused by rocks being washed into the path of the frontrunners.

"The car felt like it had no grip at all when we first got out there, but then I realised it wasn't just me - it was everyone," Hanninen said. "So I drove carefully, kept the car in the middle of the road and tried to keep out of trouble. We won't make any changes to the car now, it's fine, there's just so much water on the stages it's unreal."

Basso's dramas put Guy Wilks up into third place overall in the all-new Mellors Elliott Motorsport-built Proton Satria Neo. With the car in fine fettle for the fast gravel stages, Wilks held his rivals from Abarth at bay with a string of strong times through the opening evening, using all his experience to keep out of trouble.

"It's going much better than we'd expected," Wilks said. "We changed the shocks in between the two loops, because the car was a bit too hard for the soft surface that's left after the rainfall. If it stays as it is we might have to go softer again, but to be third on merit in our second event is fantastic."

Anton Alen holds a soggy fifth place in the second Abarth, but has a few worries. After charging into a watersplash on SS1 and finding the cockpit full of water when the bow wave raced back through his air vents, he is struggling with high water temperature. A puncture on SS3 also damaged the right hand door and window.

Meanwhile defending Russian champion Alesandr Zheludov dropped to three cylinders in the opening two stages at the wheel of his Peugeot 207 before an ignition coil fault could be repaired at service and the Russian duly flew back up to sixth place.

Pos  Driver              Car         Time/Gap
 1.  Juho Hanninen       Skoda       28m28.5s
 2.  Jan Kopecky         Skoda       +  27.5s
 3.  Guy Wilks           Proton      +  46.5s
 4.  Giandomenico Basso  Abarth      +1m21.1s
 5.  Anton Alen          Abarth      +1m25.0s
 6.  Aleksandr Zheludov  Peugeot     +2m03.9s
 7.  Patrik Flodin       Subaru      +2m13.6s
 8.  Franz Wittmann      Mitsubishi  +2m45.0s
 9.  Boris Zimin         Mitsubishi  +3m52.7s
10.  Kaspar Koiytla      Lada        +4m37.6s