Mabellini, driving for Team MRF Tyres, beat Hayden Paddon to the fastest time on the 11.87km Silesian Voivodeship stage by 8.0sec and now leads the all-asphalt event by 1.9sec with three stages remaining.
The Italian, who is leading an ERC event for the first time, benefited from a drying stage surface and a cross tyre formation of soft compound dry tyres and wet weather covers.
He said: “It was working in Ceredigion so let’s try the same we said. I had a clean run with no issues, it seems like it was working, no big dramas, just a small mistake on the last junction at a bridge when we was close to the barrier on the left but it’s okay.”
Paddon, who is driving a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 on Pirelli tyres said: “It’s pretty stressful to be honest, we’re just trying to play the safe game. Fair play to Mabellini, he’s done a great job and you can’t take that away from him but we were on the completely wrong tyres in there but it’s hard to get the right tyre choice, especially when you’re waiting on the startline for 20 minutes. It’s a bit of a lottery in that sense but we just had a clean stage and got through.”
Crews are now heading to the Tyre Fitting Zone at the Carbonarium Moszczenica before the morning trio of stages are repeated in the afternoon from 13:10 local time.
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