Catalonia: Sordo leader, Ogier adrift

The Hyundai ont été à la fête dans le premier passage de la première étape du Rally of Catalonia. Dani Sordo leads his national event one second ahead of his teammate Thierry Neuville winner of SS2. The Spaniard, however, escaped a difficulty by suffering a puncture at the end of the 3rd special.

Sébastien Loeb, the only one to rely only on hard tires, struggled on the first courses but was the fastest in the 38km of SS3. The nine-time champion WRC est remonté à la 6e place à moins d’une seconde de Kris Meeke (Toyota) et à une douzaine de secondes de la tête de la course.

Sébastien Ogier (Citroën) had started the day well by winning the first special, but the Gapençais suffered a power steering failure and lost almost 3 minutes. The Frenchman must score more points thanOtt Tänak (Toyota) to prevent him from being titled this weekend.

L’Estonien gère bien sa course en complétant le podium provisoire devant Elfyn Evans (M-Sport). Esapekka Lappi (Citroën) n’est que 7e à un dixième de Sébastien Loeb et ne devance que Teemu Suninen (M-Sport) et Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota), son coéquipier Ogier étant désormais à bonne distance du groupe de tête.

Mads Ostberg (Citroën) leads the WRC 2 Pro with almost 17 seconds ahead of already crowned Kalle Rovanperä (Skoda). Jan Kopecky (Skoda) completes the top three in the category ahead of Gus Greensmith (Ford).

The second pass of the first stage of the Rally de Catalunya is scheduled to start from 15:26 p.m. The event can be followed live with our live text.