Grangesberg service: All about positions

"I think it is a handicap to be first on the road, though it depends on the stages - it's worse on some than on others. Near the end of the second stage (SS8 Nyhammar 1), the spectators were quite bad - they couldn't hear me coming - though it's hard to say how much time that cost me."

"I'm feeling better this morning. I'm close to 100% with the car now. In some places I could maybe brake 10 metres later but that would be risky. Maybe I have to push harder, because Tommi [Makinen] is coming very fast now."

"The second stage went well, but on the first [SS7 Kullen] I had a sixth-gear corner which tightened... I turned the wheel a bit, the car went 180 degrees in the wrong direction and we went along the top of the snowbank for 100 metres."

"There is some advantage to being fifth on the road. The roads normally have a crown, but when they're ploughed they are flattened, so there is less snow in the middle and more at the edges. The cars in front clean the edges a bit and so my tyres can cut through better. We have to look at what we do for tomorrow."

"I am the problem today. It's all happening too quickly for me and I'm driving very badly. I've been arriving at the corners far too quickly." [Auriol has bronchitis].

"For SS7 I tried something different with the set-up of the centre diff' and it didn't work. I changed it back again for SS8 and it was better."

"On the first stage [this morning] I hit a snowbank quite hard. And I went straight on at a junction and frightened the photographers!"

"We have been hitting snowbanks all rally, but this time we hit one that was softer. The rear of the car went into it and then the whole snowbank broke and pulled the car over the edge and into the ditch. We broke the front left wheel on a rock, but I think we could have continued if we'd been able to get it out. But, we looked for four or five km and could not find any spectators to help. This morning we'd decided to just go for it, and get somewhere at least... [not presumably a ditch, though]"