Aigner enjoys 'best day in rally career so far'.

Red Bull Skoda youngster, Andreas Aigner put in a fantastic performance on the opening day of the Rallye Deutschland, the ninth round in the 2006 FIA World Rally Championship.

The Austrian finished the first day in eighth position overall, poised to score the final drivers' point and three in the manufacturers'. Following a difficult season to date for Aigner it was a welcome boost and he managed to set top ten stage times in all but one of the days eight tests. Indeed he even managed to post the fifth best time in SS5 and ended the day just 6.9 seconds off BP Ford number two driver, Mikko Hirvonen, who is in seventh.

"This has been the best day in my rally career so far," reflected Aigner. "The right tyre choice throughout and the experience gained in extensive testing helped me a lot. I was able to achieve my best stage times in a WRC event yet. The Fabia WRC ran trouble-free, the heavy workload in the summer months paid off for all the team.

"Now I've got plenty of self-confidence for tomorrow, I'll go confidently into the tough 'Panzerplatte' stages."

Red Bull Skoda team boss, Armin Schwarz was glad to finally see his young star shine: "We're really pleased with our team's performance. Now we have shown that the Skoda Fabia WRC is by all means able to get into world championship points range. Andreas Aigner has been able to make progress as a driver as we had hoped, Mattias [Ekstrom], who has never before driven in the rain, was going very smartly and was able to improve substantially as well. We now need to confirm this performance in the days that follow."

Ekstrom for the record ended the day in twelfth position, the DTM star admitting that he faced a steep learning curve: "It was incredibly difficult to drive. The very changeable track conditions caused a lot of hairy situations. I only get used to the circumstances slowly, but I'll continue to stand by my policy tomorrow - 'learning by doing'," he summed-up.