At mid-day service on Day 2 of Brother Rally of Whangarei, Australian Chris Atkinson leads the event in his MRF Skoda by 46.1 seconds from Swedish driver PG Anderssson.

After a puncture on Day 1  and loosing over 1-minute, the Proton S2000 driver has been pushing hard to reduce the gap to Atkinson. This morning though he was a little too ambitious and spun-off backwards into a bank. The Swede lost very little time and did no damage in the incident but it was enough to say, “lets ease off, take the safe option and go for the points”.

The battle in the Junior class hotted up this morning with Akira Bamba from Japan and New Zealand’s Michael Young both pushing each other and separated by only 0.2 seconds on the first stage of the morning. Young had a huge moment on the next test SS10, loosing over 20 seconds to Bamba, but on SS11 it was the Japanese driver’s turn to strike trouble hitting a bank and retiring.

The competitors have four more stages to complete this afternoon before the finish at the Quayside Town Basin in Whangarei.

Watch the latest results on www.chrissports.co.nz, track the cars on www.rallysafe.com.au/aprc and watch livestreaming at www.rallystream.net