Sebastien Loeb is going strength-to-strength, with every passing stage & day. Nothing new though! He extends his lead with a few ...
Sebastien Loeb is going strength-to-strength, with every passing stage & day. Nothing new though! He extends his lead with a few more seconds to
Volkswagen Polo R WRC driver,
Sebastien Ogier. Finally after some great crashes and more wild moments, it is the young
Russian,
Evgeny Novikov who is in the third spot on the over all leaderboard after SS13, after the
Citroen DS3 WRC driver
Dani Sordoi slips to 4th overall.
Mikko Hirvonen says, "Not very confident with the conditions, was pushing & nearly went off. So later, backed off the pace", so drops to 6th overall by the day's final stage. It was a good recovering day for Jari Matti-Latvala, who finally managed to climb up to 5th overall with impressive performance of his new VW Polo R WRC car. With only 3 stages on the Itinerary, the cars & crews headed to the service park at Valence, Monaco.
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| Sebastien Ogier - VW Polo R WRC |
St Jean en Royans - La Cime du Mas stage (33.19 km, SS-11) was the first stage of the day, and the stage win was taken by the nine-time-world-champ.
Ogier managed to keep the margin of win narrow with just 1.5s down
Loeb.
M-Sport chief driver,
Mads Ostberg was third quickest, while the
Russian Roulette who was quicker than the rest of the field. With the
Austrian Ilka Minor in the navigator seat,
Novikov seems to be more composed these days, but how can we forget the strong foundation laid by his most experienced former codriver,
Denis Giraudet.
 |
| Mads Ostberg - Ford Fiesta RS WRC |
After a quick service,
SS-12, the return of the classic Monte stages from the yester year's,
St Nazaire le Desert - La Motte Chalancon (22.11 km) was the next stage where the
Qatar M-Sport WRT driver
Mads Ostberg who passed the fastest, and his team-mate
Novikov did another good time behind.
Mikko Hirvonen was quicker than both the
Seb's, who were down at 4th and 5th.
Latvala struggled with his new car and was little more than 10s down the stage leader.
 |
| Sebastien Loeb - Citroen DS3 WRC |
SS-13 ,
Sisteron - Thoard (36.7 km) was the longest for the day and once again, it was
Loeb who was the quickest.
Latvala showed his speed here and finished the day's last stage 2nd quickest, 8.7s down the legend.
Ogier was third quickest, proved
Polo R WRC car has the speed, and it is just the km's that needed in the real-test on the
WRC stages to come.
A little more than 108 km lies ahead tomorrow, for the rally to conclude. It is going to be three runs of the super-freezing
Col-de-Turini, Moulinet - La Bollene, [23.54 km] and two runs of
Lantosque - Luceram -
[19 km], with the second one being the
Power Stage.
Pos. Time | Diff.Prev | Diff.Leader | Driver (comp. no) | Car
- 4:16:29.1 | +00:00.0 | +00:00.0 | S. LOEB (1) | Citroen DS3 WRC
- 4:18:29.3 | +01.47.4 | +01:47.4 | S. OGIER (8) | VW Polo R WRC
- 4:20:01.8 | +01:32.5 | +03:19.9 | E. NOVIKOV (5) | Citroen DS3 WRC
- 4:20:03.5 | +00:01.7 | +03:21.6 | D. SORDO (10) | Ford Fiesta RS WRC
- 4:20:46.8 | +00:43.3 | +04:04.9 | J. LATVALA (7) | Citroen DS3 WRC
- 4:21:01.0 | +00:14.2 | +04:19.1 | M. HIRVONEN (2) | VW Polo R WRC
- 4:21:57.4 | +00:56.4 | +05:15.5 | J. HANNINEN (6) | Ford Fiesta RS WRC
- 4:23:00.1 | +01:02.7 | +06:18.2 | M. OSTBERG (4) | Citroen DS3 WRC
- 4:25:02.6 | +02:02.5 | +08:20.7 | B. BOUFFIER (22) | Ford Fiesta RS WRC
- 4:35:30.7 | +10:28.1 | +18:48.8 | M. PROKOP (21) | Ford Fiesta RS WRC
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