Shakedown | Rallye de France | WRC - 2012 | Strasbourg Hautepierre

Shakedown of Rallye de France in Hautepierre, Strasbourg has been run, Sordo emerging the quickest. 

Behind the wheel of a MINI John Cooper Works WRC, Sordo set the fastest time of 2m34.1s through the 3.8-kilometre Parc-des-Sports-Hautepierre stage today morning. He was just over 0.3s to factory Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg was 0.6s in his Fiesta RS WRC.

Sebastien Loeb, who has a comfortable lead to his closest rival & team-mate with 61 points, all he has to do is finish in top 5 to secure his ninth WRC drivers’ crown in France this weekend. He made the practice stage in 2m35.5s. Shakedown was held early today in dry conditions at 07:30am local time, but there was light drizzle later in the morning.

Top 10 shakedown times

1 Dani Sordo (MINI) 2m34.1s
2 Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford) 2m34.4s
3 Petter Solberg (Ford) 2m35.0s
4 Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) 2m35.5s
5 Thierry Neuville (Citroen) 2m35.7s
6 Mikko Hirvonen (Citroen) 2m37.5s
= Nasser Al-Attiyah (Citroen) 2m37.5s
8 Mads Ostberg (Ford) 2m38.0s
9 Evgeny Novikov (Ford) 2m39.4s
10 Ott Tanak (Ford) 2m40.0s.

Below are small video-clips of Mikko, Loeb & Nobre taking their shot at it.

Also a short video-clip of the reconnaissance by the competitors.