Dubai: Skydive Dubai Rally Team driver Rashid Al Katbi and German co-driver Karina Hepperle will have to regroup and fight back through the field in the WRC 2 category of the 71st Rally Poland after crashing on day one of the event.

Al Katbi started well in the opening high-speed Milki stage of the seventh round of the 2014 FIA World Rally Championship on Thursday evening, but he slid into a ditch near the start of the day’s first special stage and was forced to miss the third stage in his Ford Fiesta R5, meaning he plummeted to 66th overall heading into the second day.

“We had a good shakedown on the Warminski Rally last weekend and started well before this setback,” said Al Katbi, who was reseeded into 30th position for the start of day two and set a competitive time of 6 min 27.6 sec through the fourth Wieliczki stage.

“Thankfully it was very early in the rally and there was not a lot of damage in terms of time lost and I can quite comfortably make it back over the next stages.”

The high-speed nature of the special stages in north-eastern Poland had taken many by surprise, including established WRC stars Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen.

Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen moved into an outright lead of 0.4 sec over his Volkswagen teammate and defending world champion Sebastien Ogier through two timed specials, but local hero Robert Kubica survived a roll and many of the top seeds struggled to find a fast pace on the challenging gravel. Ogier started the second day with a lead of 2,8 seconds.

Mikkelsen hit back on the first of Friday’s stage to take a 0.4-second lead into the four specials over the border in Lithuania. Ogier was second and Kris Meeke maintained third place.

In the WRC 2 category, there was a battle between Estonian Ott Tanak and Finn Jari Ketomaa, with the Estonian starting Friday’s seven timed stages with a lead of 3.9 seconds. Tanak duly extended that lead to 5.8 seconds through SS4.

The Skydive Dubai Rally Team crew had used the event’s traditional shakedown test on Thursday morning to get the set-up right for the Ford Fiesta R5. Tanak had set the pace, but Al Katbi sliced four seconds off his first run with a second sprint of 2 min 17.4 sec.

The Skydive Dubai Rally Team is running in the 2014 WRC under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, and is promoting Dubai’s hosting of Expo 2020.

Saturday’s and Sunday’s timetable features 14 timed special stages in the Polish provinces of Warmia and Mazury, east and north-east of Mikolajki, while the Mikolajki Arena will also host further super special stages for the many thousands of spectators who are attending Poland’s number one motorsport event.