Sebastien, a good day, but a bit of a moment this afternoon, tell us about that…
SO: If I sit here in the middle it is not so bad, but the second part of the day was not so good. I lost 40s with the spin and for sure there are a couple of people I have to thank – they help me when I went off on the exit of the hairpin. Without that it would be a more comfortable lead. I’m enjoying the fight with my friend Ott – but tomorrow we have to be on it from the start.

Can you psyche him out?
Inside he’s different he tries not to show it, if he comes too close I have to play a trick…

We expect a change of conditions tomorrow – what if it snows?
It can be interesting and I’m happy I’m not first on the road if the snow is coming it can be difficult – I didn’t use this advantage today [of being first on the road], but without the spin it would be close. We struggle a bit with the tyre and weather information today, I think I need a word with Ott… we have the Estonian guy doing our forecast… Ott was right all the time and we were wrong! More seriously, tomorrow we have to be right [with tyre choice].

Ott, what an incredible first full day – did you imagine this was possible?
OT: Definitely it would have been difficult to dream about this before the rally. For the moment we can’t complain, the conditions have been tricky this afternoon and the car is still going well. Since the beginning I had a good feeling in the car and that’s a good sign.

What can you do to get closer to Seb?
As we can see today, he’s getting old and starting to do mistakes, he’s a bit sleepy in places, I don’t know what he’s doing… Tomorrow he will be more tired and more sleepy. No… Sebastien is strong, these are his home roads and we play in his backyard, it’s been enjoyable and now let’s see what’s possible.

Dani, what can we see from you tomorrow?
DS: We do a couple of small mistakes with the tyres in difficult conditions today, we lost a bit of time. Sebastien was pushing really hard and his times were tough to follow, tomorrow will be a hard and long day – we’ll see what we can do.

Confident in the snow and ice?
It will be difficult if it’s snowing – ok we already have one stage in snow and tricky downhill (Sisteron). It will be the same for everybody, we need the right tyres and we try to do our best.