Day One at Rally Russia reached its midpoint with the conclusion of the Kutuzovo stage, in which crews contested a 10-kilometre dash upon the gravel roads of the Vyborg area.

On this second run of the evening, Juho Hanninen again signed a stage-winning result as he crossed the finish line with a time clocked at 5:37.4. With only 1.1sec between them, the Finn's Fabia S2000 was followed by teammate Jan Kopecky's sister car, giving the Skoda team a double win on this stage - and a one-two overall lead of the rally as well.

Patrik Flodin appeared once more as the fastest of the non-S2000 cars, setting the third-best time with his Uspenskiy Team Subaru Impreza. The Abarth Grande Punto handled by Giandomenico Basso came next, losing 6.5sec to the stage winner.

Guy Wilks' Proton Satria Neo took recorded the fifth-best time ahead of Anton Alen's Abarth machine and Franz Wittmann's Interwetten Racing Mitsubishi.

In the general standings, Juho Hanninen holds a lead of exactly 10 seconds on teammate Jan Kopecky. Giandomenico Basso slips one spot to third place overall, 4.2sec away from the driver ahead. A mere 0.3sec behind we find Patrik Flodin putting pressure on the Italian, while Guy Wilks rounds out the top five a further 4.8sec back.

Following the service break, the Rally Russia contenders return for a second passage over this evening's opening stages.