Junior winner crashes on shakedown

The Belgian, who won last time out in Bulgaria, had to be recovered after he dropped it at a second-gear right-hand corner.

His Citroen C2 suffered damage to the bodywork, but he was able to get back out for two more runs later in the morning.

Neuville says the lack of feeling in the car which caused the accident will cause him further problems on the opening day of the event tomorrow.

"This rally will be very difficult for me," he said. "We will make changes to the car now and start with it quite different in the morning. If this doesn't work, we have to make more changes tomorrow. I hope we can get it right for Saturday. As you can see from the shakedown times, we are quite far away at the moment."

"The accident was not so bad, it was two right-hand corners and I went off on the first. It was my first run at the stage, the car was sliding a little bit in the first few corners, but I kept pushing and then we went off."

Neuville tipped fellow Citroen driver Hans Weijs Jr as his biggest rival on the event - Weijs was five seconds quicker on the 3.6-mile shakedown stage.