Latvala leads German Shakedown Stage
World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier does not have a successful past record on Rally Germany and would like to make amends to the local Volkswagen team; based in Hanover, on this weekend's WRC round.
In 2011 Ogier won in Germany for Citroen, but has crashed three times in the last two years on the Trier-based event and the Volkswagen team principal Jost Capito admitted a win this week would go down well, especially with the undivided attention of Volkswagen's Board of directors focused on the rally stages around Trier.
However VW has made a good start on the event so far, posting three of the top four fastest times at shakedown on Thursday morning with Rally Finland winner Jari-Matti Latvala seamlessly changing from gravel to asphalt to win the stage, with teammate Mikkelsen just two tenths of a second slower. Ogier was only fourth in the classification behind Citroen's Kris Meeke. The reigning world champion being 0.8s behind Latvala and a tenth down on Meeke's DS 3 WRC.
20th August, 2015