Wales Rally GB: Ogier holds station at halfway point in Wales

The reigning World Rally Champion remains 36.3s ahead of closest challenge DMACK WRT Ford’s Tanak at the end of SS11 Gartheiniog before the midpoint regroup with Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville in third 42.1s off the Estonia driver.The front three shared the stage wins between them with one apiece – largely explaining the lack of movement on the timing classifications – while Hayden Paddon in the sister Hyundai slipped off the rear of Neuville at the end of S11 to drop to 7.3s back.

Despite this Paddon still holds a comfortable margin to Abu Dhabi Total WRT Citroen’s Kris Meeke in fifth with Dani Sordo in the third Hyundai a distant sixth.

Having picked up a ten second time penalty for being late at TC, Mads Ostberg is gradually being reeled in by Latvala for seventh place with the Finn now cured of his power problem which saw him running without four-wheel drive during the final stages on day one.

Stephane Lefebrve holds a comfortable ninth place as M-Sport Ford’s Eric Camilli jumped back into the top ten after a better trio of stages to overtake WRC2 leader Esapekka Lappi.

In the final Volkswagen Polo R WRC machine Mikkelsen is making slow but steady progress up the running order in 17th having been plagued by a driveshaft problem throughout day one.