Wales Rally GB - Day three
Sebastien Ogier leads WalesRally GB by a minute from Mikko Hirvonen who is just ahead of Kris Meeke for second place. Ogier has been able to take it easy since his Volkswagen team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala went off the road while challenging him for the lead first thing on Saturday.
Mikko Hirvonen currently holds second place for M-Sport Ford going into the final day of the rally but Kris Meeke is only 3.4 seconds behind in his Citroen DS3 and both Meeke and Hirvonen took stage wins today. Mads Ostberg is fourth but fell further back when a tyre delaminated on the day's penultimate stage, and ended the leg just staying ahead of Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans for fourth.
Latvala took time to regain confidence and motivation after his crash dropped him from second to 10th and left him with no rear wing and a damaged damper for the whole morning, but he finally got back on the pace in the after-dark stages that ended the day, winning the second to move up to eighth place ahead of Henning Solberg. Martin Prokop currently holds the final point not far ahead of Hayden Paddon and Robert Kubica.
IRDC chairman Shaun Martin, co-driven in his #239 Subaru Impreza this year by Iestyn Williams, has moved up to 27th after a challenging day. Following the replacement of a broken exhaust, sustained after a heavy landing on Hafren forest yesterday, the Impreza suffered wheel bearing problems today however, these too were overcome by the hard-working service crew and Shaun reported a thoroughly satisfying day as one of the 95 competitors on the National Rally.
Leading positions after SS17:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Sebastien Ogier VW 2h33m19.3s
2. Mikko Hirvonen M-Sport Ford +58.1s
3. Kris Meeke Citroen +1m01.5s
4. Mads Ostberg Citroen +1m41.2s
5. Thierry Neuville Hyundai +1m44.5s
6. Elfyn Evans M-Sport Ford +1m52.4s
7. Ott Tanak M-Sport Ford +2m33.3s
8. Jari-Matti Latvala VW +3m28.1s
9. Henning Solberg M-Sport Ford +3m37.4s
10. Martin Prokop Czech Ford +3m54.5s
16th November, 2014