Jari-Matti Latvala on the roof

Seventh on the roads of the Rally of Portugal today, Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila (Ford) took advantage of a cleaned trajectory this morning to set two consecutive best times before making a mistake. Dani Sordo and Marc Marti (Citroën) finished this morning in first place. Starting in first position, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena (Citroën) were relegated to fourth position at 22”7.

Published on 03/04/2009 à 13:36

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The day started with a first scare for Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena. A first failed braking and the Citroën crew lost almost twenty seconds. On the other hand, Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila were able to express themselves on cleaner roads. But the young Finn, who is celebrating his 24th birthday today, (once again) made a mistake, ending his day with a roll in Malhao 1 (SS4). The car would be 30 meters from the road.

Dani Sordo and Marc Marti (Citroën) took advantage of Latvala?s error to move into first position after SS4. The Spanish crew is ahead of Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen (Prodrive), second at 3??2, and Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford), third at 6??4.

Thanks to the best time in the last special of the loop, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena are fourth at 22??7. Petter Solberg (Petter Solberg WRT), Matthew Wilson (Stobart), Evgeny Novikov (Citroën Junior Team) and Sébastien Ogier (Citroën Junior Team) follow in the standings.

Departure from SS5 at 15:00 p.m.