Day 2, am: Sainz stretches lead

The Spaniard set the fastest time through SS17 the only stage run so far today. Over the 22.57km of gravel road, Sainz extended the margin between himself and second-place Markko Martin by 4.6s.

Marcus Gronholm set the second fastest time on the stage, as he battles to recover from his misfortunes yesterday. The Finn passed Sebastien Loeb, who dropped a massive 21.9s on the stage, and now sits fifth overall. His next target is team-mate Harri Rovanpera, who was 16s slower across the stage.

Richard Burns was third fastest on the stage, although he is still 16.2s behind Martin, who was fourth fastest on the stage. Petter Solberg, another driver attempting to recover from opening day misfortune, was fifth fastest.

But the talk of the morning was the spectator troubles that cancelled two stages, and force the third to be run nearly 2 hours late. The FIA safety delegate, Jacek Bartos, inspected the stages, and concluded that they could not be run because spectators were standing in unsafe places.

Gronholm had a somewhat different opinion, and radioed his Peugeot team in the morning to tell them that in his view the stages were safe to run. However, the Finn did have the motivation of knowing he would need every possible stage mile to recover from his crash on Friday.

David Richard, the boss of ISC that owns the rights to the WRC, said that safety must take priority. Both the cancelled stages are due to be re-run later today.