Ogier Leads First Day of Rally Corsica

Sebastien Ogier has established a comfortable lead over Kris Meeke on the first morning of ERC Corsica, the French round of the World Rally Championship. Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo had stayed within 4.8 seconds of Ogier's pace and Thierry Neuville also matched the world champion before experiencing fading brakes.
At the end of SS1 Ogier thought his pace notes had been too conservative so raised his game on the next stage, Plage du Liamone ? Sarrola-Carcopino, posting a time 8s quicker than second-quickest man Neuville on that one left Ogier 14.7s clear of Meeke overall heading for the midday regroup.mThe fight for second is covered by 4.2s - Meeke, Neuville and Sordo but Ogier's VW team-mates Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala started badly on SS1 but improved on SS2, where he was third quickest and moved back up from eighth to sixth overall behind Hayden Paddon.
Latvala's chosen set-upset-up for his Polo wasn't working and in addition he admitted to lacking rhythm and confidence, finishing the morning in seventh ahead of Craig Breen. The M-Sport Fords have again lacked pace - Mads Ostberg and Eric Camilli closely matched but a long way off their rivals in ninth and 10th - while Ott Tanak quickly resigned himself to a tough weekend with DMACK's asphalt tyre. The Estonian is behind the R5-spec cars of Elfyn Evans and Jan Kopecky in 13th.

Top Ten Positions after SS2:

Pos .... Driver .... Car .... Time .... Gap
1. Ogier/Ingrassia Volkswagen 49m03.7s
2. Meeke/Nagle Citroen 49m18.4s 14.7s
3. Neuville/Gilsoul Hyundai 49m21.2s 17.5s
4. Sordo/Marti Hyundai 49m22.6s 18.9s
5. Paddon/Kennard Hyundai 49m33.4s 29.7s
6. Mikkelsen/Jager Volkswagen 49m34.2s 30.5s
7. Latvala/Anttila Volkswagen 49m35.8s 32.1s
8. Breen/Martin Citroen 49m38.2s 34.5s
9. Ostberg/Floene Ford 50m07.6s m 1m03.9s
10. Camilli/Veillas Ford 50m08.1s 1m04.4s

30th September, 2016