Sebastien Ogier finished the longest competition day since 2002 with a huge advantage of two minutes and thirteen seconds over Haydn Paddon, who wasted his lead by spinning and then crashing into a rock.
Volkswagen and Hyundai racers were tied in the morning 110-kilometer rally test in Sardinia. Paddon took advantage of the better conditions on the track and increased the lead. But the New Zealander spun in the second afternoon test with the Hyundai i20, turning off his engine. Ogier thus easily took the lead, which he only increased when Paddon crashed into a rock on the next test.
“It’s been a fantastic two days for me,” said Ogier, who was the only one of the leading racers who had yet to run into trouble at the rally. “I never said it was impossible to lead a rally, but I knew my chances were slim. A lot of things happened today. It was a very busy afternoon. ”
Paddon made an emergency repair to his race car and brought Monte Lerno to the finish line of the test with a minute and 45 seconds of loss, but he still had a 1 minute 12 second advantage over Mads Ostberg in second place.
“I don’t want to dramatize, but when it happened it hit me,” said Paddon, who smiled at the first WRC championship victory. “We collided into a large rock that clung to the road. I thought we didn’t have a chance to continue, but we did our best and forcibly repaired the injuries. ”
Ostberg won two tests with Citroen, but lost 90 seconds after two punctured tires. He had a 31.4-second lead over Thierry Neuville in another Hyundai i20, who got a 40-second penalty mark-up when he rectified a power steering fault.
Elfyn Evans retained fifth place ahead of Jari-Matti Latvalo, although after the jump he had to replace a tire where he lost two minutes and then another five minutes when he ran over a rock and broke the suspension of his Ford Fiesta RS.
The day was otherwise full of resignations. Ott Tanak resigned from third place when his Fiesta got stuck in sixth gear. Andreas Mikkelsen tore the bike off his VW Polo and Dani Sordo had to stop due to low fuel pressure. Robert Kubica was plagued by transmission problems, and Martin Prokop ended the rally due to low oil pressure.
Today, the racers are only 45.8 kilometers away from the finish line.
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