Day 2 of the 2014 Rallye Deutschland is turning out to be quite dramatic.To begin with, Sébastien Ogier put his Volkswagen off the road for the second time this week on SS8 and the accident was big enough to cause the stage’s cancellation. The Frenchman and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia were taken to hospital for checks but news is reassuring.
After that, en route to the Panzerplatte stages (SS9 and SS10), there was a ‘remote tyre fitting zone’ where crews had to choose their rubber for these two notoriously punishing tests which, in ‘normal’ conditions, would usually dictate hard-compound tyres.
This morning, however, the possibility of rain had to be taken into account and the majority of the drivers decided the risk of wet weather was big enough to fit the soft-compound Michelin Pilot Sport S2. In contrast, Hyundai’s Dani Sordo and Thierry Neuville opted for the harder ‘H2’ option, knowing this would put them in a difficult position if a shower did break out.
As it turned out, the sky remained predominantly blue as crews lined up for the start of the potentially decisive SS10 (‘Panzerplatte Lang, 42.51km). The first drivers to show at the finish half-an-hour later provided the first eagerly-awaited indications of the conditions…
“The stage is mostly dry,” announced Bryan Bouffier (9th) who, unlike his Hyundai team-mates, was on soft tyres. “There’s only five percent that are a little damp.”
Unsurprisingly, therefore, with his i20 WRC fitted with Michelin H2s, Neuville produced an extremely quick time to beat Andreas Mikkelsen (5th) by almost 13 seconds and pass the Volkswagen driver on the overall leaderboard.
Not only that, but the Belgian also leapfrogged team-mate Sordo (4th) to gain a footing on the provisional podium! “I think the tyre choice was right,” he acknowledged, “but it wasn’t a perfect run. I made some mistakes and I also had to work on my pace notes.”
It was thought that Neuville might even succeed in wrestling second place from Kris Meeke whose Citroën was on soft rubber, but the Ulsterman successfully defended his position. “Completely incredible,” he smiled. “Given the different tyre choices, it looked like there would be some big gaps, but losing 5.2s to Neuville over 42.51km wasn’t so big. I’m pleased with that.”
Hyundai was deprived of its first fastest WRC time on asphalt, however, when Jari-Matti Latvala went seven-tenths faster to increase his margin over Meeke to 45.8s at Saturday’s midpoint.
Meanwhile, there’s been another change in WRC-2 where Julien Maurin (Ford), who was on hard tyres, has gone four-tenths clear of Pontus Tidemund (Ford). The class’s early leader Bernardo Sousa had to stop to change a wheel.There’s been drama in WRC-3, too, with Stéphane Lefebvre emerging in front after Eric Camilli crashed near the end of SS10.
Original story: Best-Of-Rally-Life
Top fifteen after stage 10
| 1. | 2 |  J. LATVALA |
1:36:43.3 | ||
| 2. | 3 |  K. MEEKE |
1:37:29.1 | +45.8 | +45.8 |
| 3. | 7 |  T. NEUVILLE |
1:37:37.1 | +8.0 | +53.8 |
| 4. | 8 |  D. SORDO |
1:37:38.4 | +1.3 | +55.1 |
| 5. | 9 |  A. MIKKELSEN |
1:37:49.4 | +11.0 | +1:06.1 |
| 6. | 6 | E. EVANS |
1:38:11.9 | +22.5 | +1:28.6 |
| 7. | 5 | M. HIRVONEN |
1:38:12.3 | +0.4 | +1:29.0 |
| 8. | 4 | M. OSTBERG |
1:38:16.0 | +3.7 | +1:32.7 |
| 9. | 20 |  B. BOUFFIER |
1:39:08.0 | +52.0 | +2:24.7 |
| 10. | 21 |  M. PROKOP |
1:39:41.8 | +33.8 | +2:58.5 |
| 11. | 11 |  D. KUIPERS |
1:41:52.9 | +2:11.1 | +5:09.6 |
| 12. | 10 |  R. KUBICA |
1:42:40.2 | +47.3 | +5:56.9 |
| 13. | 12 |  Y. PROTASOV |
1:43:07.5 | +27.3 | +6:24.2 |
| 14. | 39 | J. MAURIN |
1:43:10.6 | +3.1 | +6:27.3 |
| 15. | 35 |  P. TIDEMAND |
1:43:11.0 | +0.4 | +6:27.7 |