Sébastien Ogier heads the leaderboard of Rally
Sebastian Ogier of Volkswagen leads in the Spanish Rally, a leg of the WRC. A Volkswagen image
RACC Rally de España, the road sweeping effect at the front of the field proving to be less disadvantageous than hanging dust and poor visibility for his rivals in the opening day of gravel competition. Championship rival Jari-Matti Latvala has managed to climb to second, but crucially for Ogier his team-mate is nearly 40 seconds adrift and unless the Finn can claim more points in Spain than Ogier, the title fight will be over. A close third position is held by Citroën DS3 driver Mads Østberg.
The 50th edition of RallyRACC Rally de España got underway last night with a spectacular 3.20 kilometre street stage in the heart of Barcelona where Andreas Mikkelsen set the pace in front of a crowd of over 20,000. Rally de España is the only dual surface event on the calendar and today crews were faced with 138.54 competitive kilometres over predominantly gravel stages. While Championship leader Ogier would normally have been hampered opening the road, the Frenchman was able to power ahead while his rivals faced clouds of hanging dust in the still weather conditions. As such, he took the lead by the mid-day service after setting fastest time in the fourth stage. This afternoon conditions were much less tricky and the Frenchman ended the day with a handy 36.6 second advantage as the crews head into a weekend of asphalt stages. Latvala has had a difficult day, the Finn clueless as to his lack of pace on gravel. He has managed to climb from seventh to second, but the gap to Ogier is seemingly enough to ensure the Frenchman clinches back-to-back world titles in Spain. Østberg is only sixth-tenths of a second further adrift, the Norwegian having a great day in the DS3 WRC despite a spin in SS4 and then a loss of time in the final stage when he was caught in the dust of Thierry Neuville. But for that, and also getting stuck in Kris Meeke’s dust this morning, he would probably have been second overnight.
Battles throughout the top of the leaderboard and tight competition see Andreas Mikkelsen and Mikko Hirvonen also fighting for third. Mikkelsen has had an uneventful day and is just one-tenth of a second behind Østberg, while Hirvonen – who wasn’t comfortable with the set-up this morning – is only 4.1 seconds further behind. Robert Kubica holds sixth and local hero Dani Sordo is in a disappointing seventh, nearly 90 seconds off the lead. The Spaniard also had to make changes to the car at the mid-day service and ran better this afternoon but then dropped more time starting the penultimate stage late. Martin Prokop is eighth and Thierry Neuville went from hero to zero in the final stage when he got distracted by dust in the car, hit something and had to stop to change a puncture. He dropped from second to ninth after losing nearly two and a half minutes. Team-mate Hayden Paddon won stage three but had two punctures in the following stage, a spin and then another puncture in the final stage of the day. He is 14th overnight. The two leading retirements of the day were Kris Meeke and Elfyn Evans. The Ulsterman won the first stage of the day but then two punctures in the following stage and only one spare meant he was forced into retirement. Evans was ultimately forced out when he went off the road and damaged the radiator.
RallyRACC Rally de España – Unofficial Results after Section 4
