Poland WRC: Tanak dominates Friday afternoon loop, takes lead

DMACK driver Ott Tanak was quickest in three of the four afternoon stages of Rally Poland and took the lead with a small advantage over Andreas Mikkelsen.The Estonian driver’s gap was up to 3.2s after SS8 but the following run, won by Hayden Paddon, saw Tanak drop a second to Mikkelsen.

The VW driver is just two seconds adrift as a result, with Paddon also less than 10 seconds behind.

Ott Tanak

Sebastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville continued to closely follow the top 3 but the Frenchman’s teammate Jari-Matti Latvala in sixth ended up more than half a minute behind.

The Finn is just ahead of Citroen duo Stephane Lefebvre and Craig Breen, the latter temporarily edging ahead of the former, only for the Frenchman to fight back.

The M-Sport Fords of Eric Camilli and Mads Ostberg, as well as Hyundai’s Dani Sordo, all continued to have a relatively low-key day, the latter duo ending up more than a minute behind Tanak.

Standings after SS9

Pos.	Driver	Team	Gap
1	Ott Tanak Raigo Molder	Ford	59m37.0s
2	Andreas Mikkelsen Anders Jaeger	Volkswagen	+2.0s
3	Hayden Paddon John Kennard	Hyundai	+7.5s
4	Sebastien Ogier Julien Ingrassia	Volkswagen	+16.3s
5	Thierry Neuville Nicolas Gilsoul	Hyundai	+19.2s
6	Jari-Matti Latvala Miikka Anttila	Volkswagen	+34.6s
7	Stephane Lefebvre Gabin Moreau	Citroen	+36.7s
8	Craig Breen Martin Scott	Citroen	+37.1s
9	Eric Camilli Benjamin Veillas	Ford	+56.0s
10	Mads Ostberg Ola Floene