Kosciuszko snatches PWRC lead

Michal Kosciuszko has snatched the lead of the Production Car World Rally Championship from team-mate Benito Guerra after the Mexican picked up a right-rear puncture seven kilometres into the rain-hit 26.54-kilometre Stein & Wein test.

Guerra had topped the PWRC classification by 3.4s at the end of day one but is now 2m05.3s behind his fellow Ralliart Italy driver.

“I went a little bit out where there was a sidewalk, we hit it and got a puncture and had to do all the stage with this puncture so lost a lot of time,” said Guerra. “We will focus again, this is not the end.”

With Guerra using soft compound tyres, Kosciuszko feared he would drop time to Guerra by running on the hard option. “I didn’t expect this, maybe Benny was attacking because he had the soft tyre, but maybe it was too much because it’s quite a difficult stage,” said the Polish driver. “Unfortunately he has lost some time.”

Indonesia’s Subhan Aksa, competing on asphalt for the first time, was fastest through the stage to move ahead of Marcos Ligato into third position. The Argentine suffered a right-rear puncture.

In the battle for FIA WRC Academy honours Elfyn Evans still leads the category despite suffering a right-rear deflation four kilometres from the stage finish. He started the stage 9.9s ahead of Jose Suarez, whose cautious run through the test meant he was unable to capitalise on the Welshman’s slight delay.