Skoda privateers star in Spain

The duo will start leg three in fifth and sixth places, having moved past Petter Solberg's Subaru during leg two.

Kopecky worked on the handling of his Czech Rally Team run car during the day. He is now planning a steady run to the finish tomorrow.

"We made some changes at lunchtime - small changes on the dampers and anti-rollbars," Kopecky told autosport.com. "That made a big difference.

"I pushed quite hard today, but I'm not going to push too hard tomorrow because I want fifth."

Duval was also getting increasingly comfortable in the Fabia as leg two progressed, despite a scare on the final stage.

"The tyre pressures were too high," he told autosport.com. "It was really difficult to slow the car down.

"I'm finding the car quite difficult to drive on the really wide, fast parts. It's sliding a lot.

"But on the tight, twisty sections where the asphalt is abrasive, it's working really well."

With Gilles Panizzi now elevated to ninth after the stewards decided he had been unfairly delayed by a crashed car on Friday, there are now three Skoda Fabias in the top ten in Spain.