Bruno Magalhães continues to lead Sata Rallye Açores but his advantage has been trimmed to one-tenth of a second over new second-placed driver Juho Hänninen.
The Škoda Motorsport pilot was 2.4s faster than Magalhães through the 7.50-kilometre Cora da Mata test to demote M-Sport Ford Fiesta driver Andreas Mikkelsen from second to third, with Jan Kopecký fourth in the second works Škoda Fabia.
Bernardo Sousa has climbed ahead of Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion Kris Meeke into fifth, which could result in the young Portuguese driver having to run first on the road on day two. The road order for Friday’s stages will be based on rally order albeit with the top five positions reversed.
Overall positions after SS2
1 Bruno Magalhães 6m30.3s
2 Juho Hänninen +0.1s
3 Andreas Mikkelsen +1.6s
4 Jan Kopecký +5.2s
5 Bernardo Sousa +10.4s
6 Kris Meeke +12.6s