SS3: Turán falls back from podium

Andreas Mikkelsen remains in the lead of the Canon Mecsek Rallye after the 12km Pécsvárad stage, but a battle is now developing for third place between Freddy Loix and stage winner Jan Kopecký, who both gained places at the expense of Ford driver Frigyes Turán.

Kopecký brought his Fabia S2000 through in 6m46.0s, quickest of all by 0.8s, although he reported that the car’s set-up was not ideal. "The car was too stiff for this stage and jumping a lot," he said.

Loix was second fastest and now lies third overall, 0.3s ahead of Kopecký. "That was okay for us," he said. "It was the first stage where almost every corner was like we saw it in the reconnaissance."

Rally leader Mikkelsen posted the third quickest time and consolidated his overall lead from Thierry Neuville, who was fifth fastest: "No worries. This stage is very tricky. I knew I was going to lose a little bit - next time around I’ll be able to improve my speed.

"We’re not pushing maximum, but driving with a good speed and a safety margin. The opening two stages were very fast and I just trusted the pace notes."

Neuville put his relative lack of pace down to a scare early in the stage: "That was quite different and really really slippery, I went off the line twice and lost confidence during the stage."

Guy Wilks was fourth quickest, 2.0s down on Kopecký and the fastest Peugeot driver through the stage: "The commitment was a bit better there. We took a harder tyre and it worked well for us."

Erstwhile third place man Frigyes Turán slumped to sixth overall with a time 12.7s in arrears of Kopecký, while Bryan Bouffier made up 2.8s on IRC Production Cup frontrunner György Aschenbrenner to move up to seventh.