SS5: Citroens shine in the wet

After a fine and dry opening day on Rally Bulgaria, day two got underway with an unpredictable mix of localised rain, dense fog and cool temperatures in the Rila Mountains where today’s stages are based.

The first stage, the 27km Sestrimo, turned out to be mostly damp - although teams didn’t know that when tyre choices were made at the Service Park 45 minutes before it was run.

With a couple of exceptions, Citroen and Ford chose opposite tyre strategies - with the Citroens on Pirelli’s soft compound PZero and Ford, hoping for drier conditions, on the hard compound.

In the event Citroen got it right, which allowed rally leader Sebastien Loeb to take his fifth stage victory of the rally. Fellow Citroen C4 drivers Dani Sordo and Petter Solberg were his closest rivals.

Ford drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala were the highest profile casualties of the hard compound decision. Both lost more than a minute to the leaders as they struggled for grip. They dropped to fifth and sixth place respectively as Citroen Junior Team driver Sebastien Ogier leapfrogged them both.