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Stage 13 is the 23.15km Paptotki test – though it’s the only time this stage will be run, it does use the same roads as SS2 for its second half, but in the reverse direction. Because of this there will be deep ruts to contend with, but the drivers will no-doubt be looking forward to the fast, narrow and crested roads towards the end of the stage.
 Sebastien Ogier has been losing time to Ott Tanak in the battle for dominance, but in this stage, Seb managed to increase his lead over his team mates and Tanak. ‘Very happy. It has been a good morning loop for me. The road was not as clean in there as I was hoping but no problem.’ he added. Tanak’s performance was far from disappointing – he was second quickest through the stage and overtakes Jari-Matti Latvala to move up to third overall. ‘It wasn’t the perfect stage, we struggled in a couple of junctions, not so good, but we’re doing okay.’ Third quickest in the stage, and pushing hard in second place overall, was Andreas Mikkelsen. He loses three tenths to Tanak, meaning that the gap is down to 12.8 seconds. ‘A couple of mistakes, especially near the beginning.’ he reported. ‘It got better towards the end, but I have away a few seconds. it will be tough to catch him [Ogier].’ Thierry Neuville, Jari-Matti Latvala and Robert Kubica complete the top six. Neuville’s time means that he’s now just 11 seconds behind Hayden Paddon overall, the pair of them soon to be battling for fifth. The crews now head to a service stop at Rally HQ, Mikolajki, before tackling the final four stages of the day. The action resumes at 15:38 local time with the re-run of the 17.7km Mazury test. Story by: iRallylive.com |
