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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 Stephane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret (France) 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.

After a cold and overcast start from Veszprem this morning, the clouds quickly cleared to make way for warm springtime weather in the Lake Balaton region as competitors set out for the day's opener, a 157km loop to the northeast of Lake Balaton. The first stage turned out to be a drama-packed affair, with two of the front-runners De Villiers and All Attiyah both falling foul of the hazardous conditions, while World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz profited from Peterhansel's puncture to ease into a temporary lead by the margin of just three seconds.

"About 25km from the end of the long stage, we were forced to stop and change a wheel after one of our tyres was holed by a piece of metal," related Peterhansel. "We had a bit of trouble changing the wheel and the operation took a minute or so longer than it should have done. Otherwise Carlos wouldn't have passed us." After being toppled from the lead, Peterhansel decided to push hard on the afternoon's test and all was going well until the Frenchman began to have trouble with his gearbox: "We only had the first three gears for the final 20km of the stage, and that was obviously a huge handicap along the long straights. I was surprised at the finish to see that I had regained the lead by 22 seconds!"

Nani Roma put in a consistent drive to secure two third-fastest times and he was rewarded by a footing on tonight's provisional podium: "Today's stages were fast, with lots of long straights and you couldn't always see the hazards coming. You had to be on your guard all the time, but I think I went quite well this morning. The navigation was complex but Lucas did a fine job. After the long break between the two stages, I had a little difficultly settling into the same fast rhythm, and we dropped some time when we had to cover maybe 12km at the end of the test in the dust of Chicherit who had stopped to change a puncture."