La Cumbre Service 1: McRae surprises himself
Colin McRae (Ford), leader: "I was surprised at the time on the first one (SS3). I thought it would be reasonably quick, but it was better than I thought. It's a good lead, but this is the sort of rally where you could lose it easily. One the next two stages the road surface could be bad for us."
"It was very foggy on the first stage. I think the painkillers are working, but it's not the best."
"The surface is getting better for the later crews. It's a bit polished when we go through."
Burns spun in fifth gear in SS3 but didn't hit anything and was able to continue as it happened on a wide stretch of road.
Auriol is reporting that he is not getting power as soon as he wants it. He may be suffering from some kind of throttle response problem.
Rovanpera is complaining of a gearbox problem. It is not changing down properly and as a result he's losing concentration.
Gronholm has a waste gate problem that's losing turbo boost which started affecting his car 7km from the end of SS3. The Finn reports that he was surprised that he hasn't lost more time than he has.
"I hit a big rock 4.5km before the end of SS3, damaging the steering arm and rear suspension, causing the car to pull to the right."
Thiry hit a rock on SS3 that bent the rear suspension. He fixed it but spun off in SS4.
Bent front right upright on SS3.
Talking about his roll on SS3: "It was a deep rut and the car just started to go. We stayed hanging in the seatbelts until the spectators came to help, but it took a long time."
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