|
Rally Poland may be a fairly fresh event on the calendar, but it’s one the drivers have been looking forward to. Not only does it feature plenty of high speed, flowing gravel stages, but being only in its second year, it also levels the playing field in terms of specific rally experience (or lack of).
 Lastnight’s opening stage was won by Sebastien Ogier, but for today – or this morning at least – it was all change. SS2 was won by Andreas Mikkelsen, but no one was expecting the stage win hat trick from Ott Tanak that followed. This put the M-Sport driver into the rally lead, but an ever-worsening brake problem meant that his pace – and his tyres – began to suffer. This opened the door for Sebastien Ogier to make his return; the flying Frenchman took a pair of stage wins and regained the rally lead, while a win in SS8 for Jari-Matti Latvala moved him past Tanak and created the Volkswagen 1-2-3 that we end the day with. The final stage win went to Martin Prokop – he’ll be one to keep an eye on tomorrow. We end the day with Ogier leading Mikkelsen by 2.1 seconds, with Latvala a further 8.7 seconds down. Tanak is in fourth thanks to his difficulties, but only 5.9 seconds away from Latvala, while Paddon and Kubica complete the top six. Tomorrow, the crews face another 129km of competitive special stage, divided between eight stages. It all kicks off at 08:25 local time. |
