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The afternoon’s leg of Rally Poland begins with a repeat of stages three to five, albeit in a different order. Up first is SS6, the second running of the 14.65km Babki stage, which acted as SS6 this morning. It runs close the Russian border in parts and switches between cobbled and gravel surfaces with plenty of tight corners and blind dips to catch the drivers out.
 It was rally leader Ott Tanak that won this morning’s running of the stage, but Sebastien Ogier was victor this time through, recording a time fourteen seconds quicker than his first run through. ‘The road is much cleaner. All okay for us, it will be an interesting loop I think…’ smiled Seb. Second quickest through was Robert Kubica, clearly enjoying his home rally, recording a time just 1.5 seconds down on Ogier. He’s running Pirelli tyres, the hard compound of which is a touch softer than the Michelin hard – it seems to be working well for him. ‘It was a really good run through. We chose different tyres to the others… I wasn’t sure it would work, but now I am’ Robert commented. A hard push from Jari-Matti Latvala sees him scoring the third fastest time, match by Kris Meeke. Ott Tanak was fifth fastest – he still holds the rally lead over Mikkelsen, who managed a seventh quickest time, 4.7 seconds down on Ogier. Hayden Paddon completed the top six. The next stage is today’s endurance test, the 39.12km Stanczyki stage, due to kick off at 14:55 local time. |
