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The fifth day of the 2008 Central Europe Rally featured a menu of 211km of competitive action, including a second visit this morning to the longest test of the week close to Lake Balaton in Hungary. The 157km run saw Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart's Peterhansel momentarily dislodged from the lead following a puncture, but the Frenchman overcame a gearbox problem on the afternoon's test to hit back and retrieve top spot this evening. Meanwhile, two third-fastest times for Nani Roma/Lucas Cruz (Spain) have taken the Spanish pair to overnight third, and Luc Alphand/Gilles Picard have moved up two places into fifth place.

As the 2008 Central Europe Rally moved back into Hungary for the fourth day of competition, Stéphane Peterhansel and his co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret (France) succeeded in maintaining their overall lead and the French pair is 1m44s clear of De Villiers (South Africa) this evening. The terrain to the north of Lake Balaton wasn't quite such happy hunting ground for the three Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13s, however, and Luc Alphand/Gilles Picard (France) and Nani Roma/Lucas Cruz (Spain) have fallen back to sixth and seventh places respectively.

After ending Day 1 of the inaugural Central Europe Rally with a slight deficit compared with the early pace-setters, Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart's drivers turned the tables on their rivals today to move up the leaderboard. Stéphane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (France) set the fastest time over the morning's stage to ease into the provisional lead, while Luc Alphand/Gilles Picard (France) and Nani Roma/Lucas Cruz (Spain) both moved up the order into 4th and 5th places respectively despite the mixed bag of challenging conditions.

The 84 starters in the car category of the inaugural Central Europe Rally got their first taste of action today with a short 63km loop to the southeast of Budapest. The profile of the opening test, which took place in glorious spring weather, turned out to be more reminiscent of a WRC stage than a rally-raid run, so it was perhaps no surprise to see former World Champion Carlos Sainz emerge as the early leader.