WRC Rallye de France Day 2

Sebastien Loeb takes a slim lead into the second day but overnight rain has thrown the teams into chaos with their tyre choice. Although it is now sunny there is still a lot of water sitting on the stages still to dry out. Most drivers chose to go out on slicks, or slicks with extra cuts, except Richard Burns who chose intermediates, back in 6th Burns needs a good day to put his title challenge back on the road. The first stage of the day saw Burns over 30 seconds slower than rally leader Loeb and his tyre choice looked to be the wrong decision. While Markko Martin and Petter Solberg fought their way back up to 2nd and 6th respectively after accidents during the first day.

Stage 8 of the rally and the rain began to fall, and with the rest of the field still on slicks Burns looked to take the advantage but could only manage to gain two places to retake 6th. Rally leader Loeb lost control of his Citroen on the exit of a corner, beached his car over the edge of the road and needed the spectators help to get back on the road dropping himself down to 18th. Markko Martin had to stop and change a tyre after hitting the bank of rock by the side of the road and losing himself over 5 minutes and dropping to 14th. This left Francois Duval in 1st even after stalling his Ford at the start of the stage.

Stage 9 and there was little movement on the leader board with Panizzi finally showing his tarmac form and setting the stages fastest time and moving up to 5th. The last three stages of the day saw Petter Solberg set 3 fastest stage times and move up to the top spot. While Duval and Sainz followed in 2nd and 3rd with a consistent drive from McRae seeing him sat in 4th overnight. Richard Burns dropped down to 8th and now faces an uphill struggle to resurrect his rally.

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