IRC – Al-Attiyah resists Cyprus Rally

Nasser Al-Attiyah occupies the head of Rally of Cyprus after resisting the rough stages which did not leave the cars unscathed during the day. The Qatari, who is also in contention for the title at the Middle East Championship, saw his rival for the title Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Ford) retire on SS3 at Salamiou while Andreas Mikkelsen lost ground after suffering a first puncture in Koilinia SS2. The Norwegian took advantage of a spin by Sepp Wiegand (Skoda) on SS4 at Panayia to regain second place ahead of the German and begin his climb back to the lead of the race.

Andreas Mikkelsen took a string of stage wins to reduce the gap on Nasser Al-Attiyah, but the double IRC champion suffered another puncture on SS7 at Panayia, seven kilometers from the finish. The Qatari thus has a lead of 1'30"2 over his Norwegian rival at the end of the first day. Sepp Wiegand saw his hopes of a podium dashed when he retired due to a steering problem on the final route of the stage, allowing Toshihiro Arai to move into third position in his Subaru Impreza R4. Although the Japanese is more than five minutes behind the leaders, he has a lead of several minutes over local driver Savvas Savva at the wheel of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Jarkko Nikara (Subaru) seemed able to recover the position of Sepp Wiegand but the Finn fell to fifth place 21 seconds behind the Cypriot after suffering a puncture.

Robert Consani took advantage of Harry Hunt's puncture on his Citroën DS3 R3T in SS3 to take the lead of the 2WD. But the Frenchman retired in the next special stage following clutch problems on his Renault Clio R3. The Briton thus recovered his position and ended the day with a solid lead over the DS3 R3T of Menyhért Krozser, occupying eighth place in the general classification. Jarkko Nikara's puncture caused him to lose the lead in the Production category dominated by Toshihiro Arai. The Finn is third in the category behind Savvas Savva.

The crews will still have 100km timed to cover before the finish line of the Cyprus Rally. The second stage will be made up of three special stages contested twice. The day will start with the Prodromi special (19,4km) which will precede Gialia (14,8km) and Stavros (15,9km).