Suzuki driver Guy Wilks is leading the Junior World Rally Championship classification after a stunning drive on the opening day of the Rally Mexico, round two of the series. His Monster Sport Europe team mate, P-G Andersson, ends the day in second place - making it a spectacular one-two for Suzuki!

Strong performance of Guy Wilks on the Mexican roads

Leg one of the Rally Mexico consisted of six gravel stages split into two loops of three. The weather was extremely dry and warm, resulting in a hard surface that was at times more reminiscent of an asphalt rally! The polished roads were extremely slippery, and tyre wear was a key issue. The stages contained a wide variety of speeds and corners, while the enthusiastic Mexican fans turned out in their thousands to witness a piece of the action.

Guy took the lead on the opening stage, and set one but every fastest time in the class to open up a 43,4-second advantage at the end of the first day. He had no problems at all, apart from an overshoot on SS3 that forced him to stop and reverse back onto the road. A watersplash in the morning damaged his car's bodywork slightly, but otherwise his Ignis was a hundred percent reliable.

The Englishman said: "It's been a perfect day really - apart from the overshoot on SS3 nothing unexpected happened. That is not to say that it has been easy though: the surfaces are incredibly slippery and there is a constant risk of sliding off. I've never done this rally before, but everybody who has says it is much more difficult than last year. I've been pushing quite hard, but at the same time you cannot go mad otherwise you will wreck the tyres. I would describe my pace as fast, but without taking risks."

Reigning Junior World Champion P-G was also straight on the pace, and maintained second in class from start to finish. The Swede had no problems, apart from a close encounter with a retired World Rally Car on SS2.

P-G reported: "At the very end of the stage I slid wide on a corner, where a World Rally Car that had crashed earlier was parked. We slid closer and closer and I was convinced we were going to hit it. Luckily we missed it by millimetres! That was our biggest moment, but we've had lots of little moments all the time today. The surface is so tricky and inconsistent that we are getting both understeer and oversteer. But this is a valuable opportunity for us to score more points, so we have to keep concentrated and get a good safe finish."

Monster Sport Europe Team Manager Risto Laine commented: "It's been very strange so far as this is a rally with quite a lot of pressure. Because the other cars will be a long way behind us, we can only lose this rally rather than win it. At the same time there is no point in telling the drivers to slow down, because then they will lose concentration and that is how mistakes happen. The surfaces are incredibly difficult to drive on because the level of grip is constantly changing. But our drivers know what they have to do."

Pavel Valousek, driving an Ignis Super 1600 run by Czech team JM Engineering, unfortunately went off the road on SS1 and was not able to complete the leg. However, his car was recovered to the service park in Leon, and the Czech is scheduled to re-join the rally tomorrow thanks to the new re-start rules.

Leg two of the Rally Mexico gets underway at 0830 tomorrow (CET -7h), and takes in six more special stages, once again split into two loops of three. Competitors will rack up another gruelling 146 competitive kilometres, before returning to Parc Ferme in Leon at 19:24. The weather is expected to remain dry and sunny.

1 Guy Wilks (Suzuki Ignis) 1h25m55.6s
2 P-G Andersson (Suzuki Ignis) +43.4s

*no remaining runners finished leg one