Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It’s been a very strong day for our team overall. We were hoping to be fighting at the front on a rally that suits our car and our drivers but we were also expecting a strong fight, so to be 1-2-3 for the moment has been a surprise. At the same time, it’s nice to see some great positives among our drivers, like Sami doing a good job up in third overall, and Taka having a brilliant afternoon to take the rally lead. I’m sure Elfyn will be looking to fight back tomorrow when his road position will be better, so it should be an interesting fight to follow between our drivers. Oliver can still come back as well: today was his first time experiencing the challenges of being first on the road, and that’s valuable for the future.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It was a good start for us this morning, even though the conditions were not straightforward. The grip was changing from one stage to another and keeping us on our toes. Inevitably the road was going to evolve this afternoon and get quicker for those running behind us, but we did what we could. It wasn’t quite enough to hang onto the lead tonight, but there’s still a long way to go. Taka is always very strong on this rally and it will be nice to fight with him again tomorrow. Our road positions will be more equal and that should keep it interesting.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“I think I underestimated just how difficult it would be as the first car on the road today. It’s a big learning curve. I was a bit careful in the first stage this morning, so I tried to drive a bit more normally and more sideways in the second one, but there was a lot of snow. I was a bit too fast, off the line, and I was lucky to get back on the road. We did hit something and pick up a puncture, but didn’t lose too much time. We tried our best this afternoon and we’re still in position to fight for something tomorrow, when the road position will be better, so we need to be positive.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Everything went well and according to plan today. We knew that the afternoon would be more difficult for the frontrunners, so I just tried to be patient in the morning loop and then in the afternoon we were able to catch back up and take the lead. It was quite a tricky loop in terms of tyre wear but I think we did a good job of managing that and finding the right places to push. Still there are two days to go but I feel confident and comfortable with the car and just need to keep focused. Elfyn is fast and never easy to beat, but I will try to fight until the end.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“I’m quite happy with today, it’s been a pretty good one and it’s always nice to be in a podium position, even if there is still a very long way to go. We didn’t make any mistakes and I’ve been enjoying the driving a lot in these beautiful winter conditions. I’m always looking for things we can do better and we just need to keep pushing tomorrow. It will be a different challenge with a different road order but we’ll just do the best we can.”

End of day two (Friday):
1 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h10m33.7s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2.8s
3 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +22.2s
4 Esapekka Lappi/Enni Mälkönen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +45.9s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +50.3s
6 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +51.0s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m43.8s
8 Jon Armstrong/Shane Byrne (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m40.3s
9 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +3m31.8s
10 Roope Korhonen/Anssi Viinikka (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +4m41.9s
(Results as of 20:00 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
Saturday follows a similar format to Friday, with a loop of three stages to the west of Umeå run twice either side of mid-day service, and another run of Umeå Sprint at the end of the day, which totals 104.42 competitive kilometres.