Rallye Deutschland - Day 2
At the end of the second day of ADAC Rallye Deutschland, Jari-Matti Latvala is moving closer to Volkswagen's first World Rally Championship victory on home soil with just one more loop of stages remaining. With his team-mate and title rival Sebastien Ogier out of the rally following a crash, Latvala adopted a more cautious driving style during Saturday afternoon's stages, but even so, he took three stage victories.
He will begin the final day of the event with a comfortable 56.6-second advantage over Citroen's Kris Meeke, whose advantage over Hyundai rival Thierry Neuville dwindled from 8.0s at the interval to 4.3s during the course of the afternoon. Team-mate Dani Sordo slipped back from the fight for second after aquaplaning on the shortened Peterberg stage.
Andreas Mikkelsen maintained his fifth place overall during the afternoon and took advantage of Sordo's misfortune to be just 5.5s behind the Spaniard at the end of the penultimate day. Currently sixth is M-Sport Ford man Mikko Hirvonen, who demoted team-mate Elfyn Evans on the Stein & Wein stage before upping his pace and 4.9s separates them overnight.
Hot on the Welshman's heels is Mads Ostberg just 1.2s behind in eighth. Ford privateer Martin Prokop and Robert Kubica moved up the order at the end of the Panzerplatte stage after Hyundai debutant Bryan Bouffier went off approximately 17 miles into the daunting test but driver and co-driver Xavier Panseri were pronounced fine, but the team has yet to confirm the state of the i20 or whether they will be returning under Rally 2 conditions on Sunday.
Leading positions after SS14:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Jari-Matti Latvala VW 2h19m00.7s
2. Kris Meeke Citroen +56.6s
3. Thierry Neuville Hyundai +1m00.9s
4. Dani Sordo Hyundai +1m26.8s
5. Andreas Mikkelsen VW +1m37.0s
6. Mikko Hirvonen M-Sport Ford +1m53.2s
7. Elfyn Evans M-Sport Ford +1m58.1s
8. Mads Ostberg Citroen +1m59.3s
9. Martin Prokop Czech Ford +4m09.6s
10. Robert Kubica M-Sport Ford +6m39.1s
23rd August, 2014