Rowe holds second for Subaru in PCWRC.

Martin Rowe holds an encouraging second place in the Production Car World Rally Championship at the end of the first day of the Rally of Germany.

The Englishman settled into the tricky tarmac stages right from the first test and was never out of the top three places in his Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

"Our front tyre wear has been a little excessive," said Rowe. "We had to change the back tyres to the fronts and vice versa before stage 4 but we'd planned to do that anyway."

For the first three stages, Rowe was third behind Daniel Sola and Niall McShea, but moved up to the runner-up position on the 35 kms long stage four, Panzerplatte Ost, the longest test of the rally.

Like many other drivers, Rowe has found the conditions tricky, with leading cars cutting the corners and dragging mud and stones out onto the road surface.

"Judging braking distances is very difficult," said Rowe. "We overshot one junction in stage two and lost maybe 12 seconds. The stages are very narrow, often with tight corners, leaving little margin for error."

Rowe's efforts to keep Sola in sight were thwarted by a puncture on stage six which cost him 30 seconds. At the end of stage five Rowe was nearly 40 seconds in front of third placed Marco Ligato, but at the end of the day after seven stages the gap was only 16.2 seconds.

"We're happy with the way today has gone," said Rowe. "We knew Sola would be quick on tarmac, although his speed has surprised us a bit. But to be ahead of all the other Mitsubishis shows the latest Subaru is good on the tarmac stages as well as gravel."

Sola's speed has not been without some risk. He hit a large rock and heavily damaged the right rear door of his car, but the suspension was only slightly bent

Further back Stig Blomqvist in the other David Sutton Motorsport run Subaru Impreza WRX STI moved up the field during the day with a steady drive to be seventh over night. The 1984 World Champion commented he was driving at his own pace and not worrying about the other PCWRC drivers. "I never was a tarmac specialist," said Blomqvist. "So today was Okay!"

Canadian champion Patrick Richard did not have a happy introduction to European tarmac rallying. His Subaru Impreza WRX STI suffered a puncture on the first stage and then broke a right rear drive shaft on stage two. While both problems were rectified he was forced out of the event on stage four with gearbox problems.