Dani Sordo on the provisional podium
Dani Sordo and Marc Marti returned to the service area in Mikolajki in third position after this morning’s run. The loop was marked by the elimination of Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena after their Citroën C4 WRC clouted a tree stump.

The 2009 Rally Poland kicked off with Thursday evening’s super-special adjacent to the service area which saw Sébastien Loeb collect the second best time behind Petter Solberg.

The five-time World Champion followed that up by moving to the top of the order thanks to another second quickest time on the first of the morning’s extremely fast stages, Grabowka (SS2). A little later, however, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were forced out on SS4 (Paprotki): "There was a tree stump on our line and we hit it. It wasn’t in our pacenotes, and neither Dani Sordo nor Sébastien Ogier had noted it either. You can’t see it on the video. It’s just bad luck. It’s often said in France that you never get two in a row, without a third, and today’s incident is our third setback in succession. We will rejoin tomorrow thanks to the SupeRally ruling, but with a 20-minute penalty. It’s obviously not all that stimulating a prospect but we’ve still got a chance to pick up some Manufacturers’ points."

Dani Sordo and Marc Marti were regularly up with the front-runners and completed the morning’s run in third place, 14.7 seconds off the lead: "Today’s three stages are a real challenge. The roads here are very fast and you need to be fully concentrated. There were some particularly delicate spots, and we made a small mistake three kilometres from the finish of SS4. The note came a bit late and we went straight on. I am disappointed for Sébastien; he doesn’t deserve to be this unlucky. Personally, I intend to stick to the same sort of pace. First of all, though, we will change the set-up of my C4 WRC to try to adapt its handling to the ruts which formed during this morning’s run."

The Citroën Junior Team also lost a car, that of Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt. Their Citroën C4 WRC figured in fifth position after SS3, but the front-right damper broke following an awkward landing shortly before the finish of SS4.

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia started the day cautiously on these stages which are new to all the front-runners. They are currently sixth: "It’s very fast out there and you need to be fully focused all the time. We decided to take our time to bed ourselves in because it is difficult to drive these stages quickly. You really need to feel confident before you can start to loosen up. A spin on the last stage probably cost us about 15 seconds. I prefer to take my time to find my marks at these speeds."

Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt ended the first loop inside the top-10: "I probably pushed a little too hard on the first test and my car was sliding about a bit too much. After that, I didn’t really manage to find a pace at which I felt comfortable. I need to get a feel for these extremely fast stages. They are very different to those of the events we have just tackled. We will work on the car now to adapt the set-up for what I expect will be rougher conditions this afternoon."

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