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Day two of Rally Finland has begun with the 14.51km Pihlajakoski test – a stage that returned to the rally last year for the first time since the Group B era in the ’80s. It’s a typical Finnish stage, with fast, sweeping corners and lots of small crests, as well as one big jump – the speed of the stage will get the drivers settled into the day’s pace. Today will see the drivers cover almost half of the total rally distance.
 With a time of 6:36.3 from Jari-Matti Latvala, he takes the stage win. ‘A good stage, a small moment on the first crest, but one we could get away with.’ he explained. Second quickest, nine tenths of a second down on Latvala, was Kris Meeke – and that means that he’s now in the rally lead. ‘A good start. It felt really comfortable. A really nice run.’ said Meeke. ‘A couple of small errors which cost me some momentum but I’m happy so far.’ Tanak was third fastest in the stage, 1.1 seconds down on Latvala, with Sebastien Ogier, Hayden Paddon and Elfyn Evans completing the top six. Robert Kubica had been showing promising pace, but is suffering with a diff problem, putting him down in eleventh through the stage – his Fiesta is front-wheel drive only. Meeke’s rally lead is by just one tenth of a second over Latvala, wth Ogier four tenths down on the leader. Tanak, Paddon and Evans make up the top six, with 8.3 seconds covering the lot of them. The next stage is Päijälä, a 23.38km test of man and machine. It begins at 10:36 local time. |
