Today’s action was closer to the central service park in Swansea, with the three stages running north of the city. The final test of the day was back in Cardiff inside the Millennium Stadium, where the organizers had tweaked the one-kilometer stage to make it even more entertaining for the tens of thousands of fans who packed out a venue more normally associated with rugby.

At the end of another difficult day on the stages, Aigner admitted his focus was firmly on the finish in Cardiff in 24 hours’ time.

“Of course, I want to be at the finish in this position, but there’s still a long way to go,” he said. “I had a spin in the last stage, Crychan. The car got away from me in a left corner over a patch of ice. The conditions have been tough again today, just trying to spot the ice is really hard. I thought it might be better this afternoon, but it was getting slippery again as the temperatures dropped in the afternoon.”

Aigner backed off this morning, but gave himself a scare at the mid-day service and then pushed harder again in the afternoon.

“I think I had backed off too much,” he added. “So, this afternoon I went flat out again. I like the stages tomorrow, but we have to wait and see for the conditions.”

One place behind Aigner was Guy Wilks (United Kingdom), who is on the verge of clinching a second successive British Rally Championship crown for the Mitsubishi Motors UK team. Like Aigner, Wilks remains firmly focused on the season-long battle.

“This rally is about getting to the end now,” he said. “Today’s been really hard. We’ve had a few problems here and there, but we’ve got through. It would be nice to try and catch the guys ahead, but at the end of the day, we’re here for the British Rally Championship points and that’s all.”

Five Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions held top-10 positions in the PWRC at the end of day two, with Mirco Baldacci (San Marino) and Armindo Araujo (Portugal) looking good to pick up points on this final Group N and PWRC encounter of the season.

Tomorrow’s final day is the shortest of the three, with the crews facing 319 kilometers of driving, 96 of which will be competitive. After two days of competing north of Swansea, the final day takes them east for the classic Rheola and Port Talbot stages. After two loops of the tests, split by service in Swansea, the cars finish back in Cardiff at 15h00.

In the overall standings, Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland) leads the event outright for Ford, with Sebastien Loeb (France) in second place and his Citroen team-mate Dani Sordo (Spain) third.