New Zealanders Hayden Paddon and John Kennard won four of the seven stages in their FIA Super 2000 World Rally Championship category on day two of Wales Rally GB.
The fact they finished all seven stages was a boost for the top-class Kiwi pairing after having to retire partway through the first day with electrical and gearbox issues.
With the Skoda repaired overnight, Paddon says Saturday's first stage went well.
"We set a good time that was just over a second behind Sébastien Ogier," said Paddon of his 11:14.2 time for the 19.5 kilometre Crychan stage, which was over eight seconds faster than his closest SWRC competitor P-G Andersson who also restarted the rally after breaking a wheel on day one.
Paddon went on to win the SWRC category in each of the next three stages. With a deficit of over 20 minutes to overnight class leader Craig Breen that he'd unlikely to be able to redress, Paddon was focussed on demonstrating his overall speed against his personal benchmark, French star Ogier, also driving a Skoda Fabia S2000 car. While his pace put him at or near the top of the SWRC competitors all day, Paddon wasn't able to set times as close to Ogier's as he'd have liked.