Points all round as Puma drivers eat up Turkey.

Another difficult day in the mountains of Antalya has seen the FIA Junior World Rally Championship thrown wide open.

A combination of sensible driving and good fortune has promoted Ford Puma driver Guy Wilks to second overall this evening while Abdo Feghali has produced a gritty and determined drive to lie seventh on his gravel rally debut.

Just eight of the original 22 starters completed today's seven stages and with points this season distributed down to eighth place, survival will be the key word for tomorrow's final five tests.

Guy Wilks was promoted to fourth overnight after event stewards imposed a four-minute penalty on Ville-Pertti Teuronen for changing a tyre in the control zone before SS4 without the necessary permission. Wilks' consistent driving paid off and he climbed to third position over the first two stages this morning, despite having to follow in deep ruts carved by previous crews.

"The first two stages were a damage limitation exercise," said the 22-year old Englishman. "There was no way to get out of the ruts or to avoid running over rocks the size of house bricks."

His Welsh co-driver Phil Pugh [today is St David's Day, celebrating the patron saint of Wales] added: "We were held up behind Marcos Ligato for about 10kms on the second stage today, just following behind and unable to do anything to get past. It's like a minefield out there."

The middle three stages saw the Anglo-Welsh pairing adopt a steady tactic. Water had got into the engine air filter and cut the power for SS9 and then on the next two stages it was apparent that the sump guard had been pushed up and damaged the sump itself. The problem was resolved with a new sump pan at service but it forced Wilks to slow a little for those two stages.

Chris Birkbeck, Wilks' team manager, said this evening: "I'm very pleased at the way Guy has tried to preserve the car today. He realised that it was pointless to attack too hard and he's driven with his head. He needs a good points score so that he is well seeded for the next JWRC round in Greece so the plan for tomorrow is to carry on as he did today."

Abdo Feghali and co-driver Joseph Matar hoped that yesterday's power steering problems were behind them but on the run out to this morning's first stage they realised that, once again, there was no steering assistance. He muscled the car through the two stages before returning to service where a Ford team physiotherapist worked on his aching arms while the mechanics worked on the car. It was soon apparent that the problem could only be fixed by a complete change of the steering assembly, a job that inevitably took longer than the permitted service time.

Astra Racing principal, Luca Pregliasco, said: "We decided that collecting a 1min road penalty was a lot less costly than the time Abdo would have lost if we'd sent him into stages 9-11 without power steering."

The 25-year old Lebanese driver Feghali is tackling his first gravel rally and yesterday admitted that he was thoroughly enjoying the surface. However, the rough conditions in Turkey have meant that he can not push as hard as he would like. "You have absolutely no idea what rocks you will find hidden round the next corner and so it is stupid to build up so much speed that you can't avoid the dangers. This isn't like a normal rally, it's more like the Dakar! The Astra team mechanics did a fantastic job with the steering assembly change but unfortunately we weren't able to maximise our performance on the next three stages as the right rear suspension was damaged. It's been one of those rallies..."

Norway's Martin Stenshorne was forced to withdraw from the Rally of Turkey before this morning's restart after his Welsh co-driver Clive Jenkins was taken ill late last night. A doctor treated Jenkins after suffering a sudden and debilitating bout of gastro-enteritis yesterday evening. He spent last night in the local hospital at Kemer before being released this evening.