Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson is sure Mikko Hirvonen can still win Rally d'Italia, despite being almost a minute behind leader Sebastien Loeb at the start of the second day.
Hirvonen is running third on the road, behind second-placed Petter Solberg and Loeb, and it is that position which Wilson feels can help his Finnish driver on what are expected to be gravel-strewn roads around Olbia today.
There had been talk of showers today, which would have helped bind the loose gravel together, handing the advantage back to Loeb, but with sunny and dry conditions looking set to continue, the advantage will remain with the drivers further back on the road.
"This is not all over," said Wilson. "I really feel there's a good chance here for Mikko. Genuinely, I do believe that if he has a clean run, he can get back in there for the fight tomorrow [Sunday].
"There's a lot of gravel out there and there's 140 kilometers or something like that. The roads have only got drier since the rain just before the recce and we'd always labelled tomorrow as the crucial one [from a road-cleaning perspective]."