World champion Loeb entered SS2 with the same set of Pirelli gravel tires he used on Thursday and even carried two worn spares in the car for later stages.
“If I’m still in the lead tomorrow I know I will have to clean the road so I’m still trying as hard as I can to increase the lead,” said Loeb. “We used our spare wheels, and swapped the fronts and rears around before that stage. It’s okay.”
Mikko Hirvonen, the driver who arrived third in SS2 at nearly two seconds behind Dani Sordo, admitted the racing conditions were fairly difficult especially due to the continuously-changing grip.
“Compared to the first stage there was a little improvement but it’s still very difficult,” said Hirvonen. “The grip is changing all the time and you don’t see where the slippery bits are. It feels like there is some kind of dust on the surface in places - I don’t like this at all. There’s still along way to go today - we’ll see what we can do.”
Far from a great achievement in SS1, Jari-Matti Latvala, who made his Cyprus Rally debut this weekend, acknowledged he started the first stage way too aggressively but he expressed his confidence he'll do better in the next sessions.
“I lost a lot of time near the start because I was driving too aggressively,” he said. “But when I corrected that my times got better towards the end. It’ll be alright from here on.”
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