Flying Finn Juho Hanninen says that he never expected to be leading at the end of the first four stages of Rally Russia.

The fourth run represented the end of competitive action on Day One, as the crews then headed south on the long drive to St Petersburg for the ceremonial start, which takes place at 7pm local time this evening.

"It`s been a big surprise for me," said Hanninen, who only completed 60 kilometres of testing in his Peugeot 207 S2000 prior to the start of Rally Russia. "I expected Anton Alen to be very fast here, but actually I did not expect to be in front of him."

"We set some good times on the first four stages and in some places I was pushing quite hard, but I also know that I made a lot of mistakes that were down to inexperience with the car," he admitted.

"I tried to stay out of trouble but I often found myself in the wrong gear, for example, which meant that I wasn`t getting a lot of traction out of the corners," Hanninen explained. "The handling of the Peugeot is very good, but I think it takes a bit of time to know how to drive it properly."

Hanninen, who has previous IRC experience from finishing fifth in Portugal, is making his debut in a Super 2000 car on this event - driving the same Peugeot 207 that was used by Patrick Snijers at the Ypres Rally in Belgium two weeks ago.

"This type of car is a lot of fun," said Hanninen, who now has a 21-second lead over Giandomenico Basso. "I`m looking forward to tomorrow`s stages, when I will know it a little bit better."
sections: Sport, Region News
areas: North-West region