Al-Attiyah leads, Prokop charges

Martin Prokop has already begun to fight back from his 20-second time penalty, imposed for leaving opening service late, by setting the fastest time on Friday’s opening stage, the 10.42 Kalavasos test.

Prokop was three seconds faster than Nasser Al-Attiyah, who continues to lead the Intercontinental Rally Challenge event in his similar Fiesta.

Roger Feghali was 9.2s slower than Prokop, despite having to drive with a bent rear arm on his Škoda Fabia S2000. He damaged the part nudging a concrete retaining wall on Thursday night’s Lemesos Super Special Stage and has no available spare to make the change.

Andreas Mikkelsen’s hopes of victory were dashed when his M-Sport Fiesta lost power on the road section heading to the opening stage and retired.

Bryan Bouffier, driving a Peugeot 207, stopped in the stage with a broken wheel. He eventually completed the stage but lost 24 minutes on the leaders.

“I hit a big stone with the right wheel,” said the Peugeot 207 driver. “We did our best to repair the damage but the car is now not straight.”

Team-mate Franz Wittmann was delayed leaving service due to a mechanical failure but eventually got going and completed the stage.

After SS2: