Latvala takes a serious advantage

The world champion, Sébastien Loeb, had anticipated the situation. “ The roads are very slippery. I gained fifteen seconds between my first and third shakedown passes, because the track was swept by the other drivers in the meantime. This shows the importance of position on the road. Since I'm first on the first day, there's a chance of losing a lot of time. Latvala, who starts far behind, can open up a big gap on the first day, and that could be enough for him to keep the lead all weekend. » Sébastien Loeb warned on Thursday. And what he had imagined happened on Friday morning. Starting from afar, Jari-Matti Latvala took advantage of the tracks swept by his competitors to set two scratch times in three special stages, taking nearly fifteen seconds ahead of the five-time world champion.

The second special went to Dani Sordo, who however did not take advantage of this time to place himself overall, since the Spaniard was penalized at the start of the day for showing up late during SS1. Second in this SS2, Latvala once again took advantage of this segment to widen the gap on his competitors. During this morning, Sébastien Loeb could only limit the damage. Fourth in the first two specials, then second in SS3, driver Ciroën had a good morning which placed him in second place in the general classification. Behind, Mikko Hirvonen, Petter Solberg and Sébastien Ogier.