The second leg of Wales Rally GB began this morning without the fog and rain which made things so difficult during yesterday's final stage. The drivers will have to enjoy such sunny weather conditions while they last as rain is again forecasted.

The Crychan stage is considered a classic Welsh forest run on fast and narrow sections, all made slippery due to yesterday's torrential rains which have kept the surface elements muddy.

After establishing a time of 10'31"2, the fastest driver through this route was Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, while Ford driver and title hopeful Marcus Grönholm appeared in second position 4.4 seconds later. "No stress, but what can I do, just wait to the end," said Grönholm. "Still one long day and tomorrow, let's wait and see."

He was followed 6.1 seconds behind by his rival, works Citroën driver Sébastien Loeb. "Conditions are not so bad, slippery but okay," reported Loeb, still on track regarding his championship strategy, which is to simply maintain pace and not push. "It's all going to plan. It is not a pleasure to drive in this situation, but it is what we have to do."

Mikko Hirvonen took fourth place a dozen seconds behind, which was not the pace the Ford team driver presented yesterday. The Finn admitted to being overcautious: "I need to step up a bit. Nothing happened really, I was too careful."

Citroën's Dani Sordo took fifth place, with two official Subaru Imprezas driven by Xevi Pons and Chris Atkinson in tow.

Nearly 20 seconds away from the stage leader, a trio of same-make cars completed the top ten: Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg claimed eighth position, with Andreas Mikkelsen's Focus arriving in ninth just ahead of Matthew Wilson at the wheel of another Stobart Ford.

Petter Solberg started the day with a spin on the opening stage, as was the case yesterday, which deserved him 16th position on this run. He knows the turn in question well and seemed perplexed as to why it happened: "I don't know why. Just spinning, just went around."

The leaderboard shows Mikko Hirvonen in the lead with a 31.2-second advantage on Marcus Grönholm, while Sébastien Loeb appears a further 24.4 seconds away. Petter Solberg sits over a minute down, yet 41.7 seconds ahead of Dani Sordo.

The Epynt 1 stage comes next this morning.