Steady start for Atkinson

Australia's Chris Atkinson has finished the first day of Rally Germany in ninth place, but is not far from sixth place after a steady first day. 

"Not a bad day.I had a reasonable tyre call this afternoon but unfortunately we still got caught out a bit by the weather. On the afternoon loop we were at the back of the running order and it absolutely poured down.We lost some time there, and even through we were better that everyone around us, the guys with a clean run were much faster," Atkinson said.

"But we’re ninth now, and not too far away from sixth really, we’ve been competitive with our team mates and that’s what we wanted to do."

Atkinson's team-mate, Petter Solberg, is fifth, while Stephane Sarrazin, who is Subaru's second pointscoring driver, lies one place behind the Australian.

Author