After the first day of tarmac competition in Corsica, Banbury's Subaru World Rally Team entries once again livened up the WRC with a thrilling day-long battle for position.

The pairings of Petter Solberg / Phil Mills and Chris Atkinson / Stéphane Prévot performed solidly under pressure in a very tight three-way shootout to finish fourth and sixth respectively, whilst Brice Tirabassi and Fabrice Gordon fought hard to climb to ninth in only their second rally with the team.

The rally is led by Citroen's Sebastien Loeb.

Team principal David Richards said: “It’s been an encouraging day of clear steady progress and all of our drivers are in good positions to capitalise on their performance over the next couple of days.

“We came here with the same set-up as we finished Spain, and as our drivers cover more distance on tarmac with this car, so we are able to optimise the setup in these conditions.”

Rallye de France Tour de Corse is the second instalment of the season’s back-to-back Mediterranean asphalt challenge, but the French rally demonstrated the fiery temperament more characteristic with neighbouring Italy.

Today’s stages were very definitely Corsican in their nature though, and equally different from the tests seen last week in Spain. The roads twisted and turned their way through the island’s rugged mountains, and were much dirtier and more gravel-strewn than their Catalan counterparts.

Right from the day’s first stage, the trio of Solberg, Atkinson and Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala were locked in a close-run duel for position, the gaps between them down to just 0.1seconds at times as they traded positions.

Solberg and Mills delivered a great performance to clinch the honours of this battle on the final stage, leapfrogging two positions to jump into fourth position overall.

“I’m very happy with the last stage today actually” said Petter Solberg. “We made some changes in the service and they didn’t work at all so we lost two places, but then we went back again and I made some more changes the other way on the road section before the last stage and the car got better and better.

“The car is definitely running better on the surface here. On the smooth stages like the first today we lose a bit of time, but on the others where it’s more abrasive it’s much better grip. We’ll make a change again and see what we can do on the stages tomorrow.”