Ford drivers take control in Poland

If we rely on the general classification at the end of stage 2, things do not seem to have changed that much. Mikko Hirvonen still leads the eighth round of the championship, Jari-Matti Latvala is still his runner-up, around ten seconds behind, and Dani Sordo fails to catch up, stuck around forty seconds behind the leader.

If the positions of the leading trio did not change, on the other hand, the course of the day was much more intense. Divided into two loops, the second stage of Rally from Poland was initially beneficial to the Citroën driver, Sordo, who took advantage of his position on the road to get closer to his competitors at midday. Coming back to less than 20 seconds of the Ford drivers at the Mikolajki service park at the start of the afternoon, we then believed the Spaniard capable of being able to catch up with the Finns.

But the second loop was not as advantageous as the first for Sordo. On the contrary, it was Malcolm Wilson's men who suffered less from the sweeping conditions present in the morning. On a cleaned track, Hirvonen and Latvala constantly finished ahead of their main rival and are in an ideal position before entering the final straight of the Polish round on Sunday.

« This afternoon was completely crazy " said Hirvonen. “ It's been a long time since we've been this thorough. It?s a good day – although I didn?t expect to struggle so much. I thought it would be a little simpler but from the second stage today, we were absolutely flat out. It's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic! » Sordo immediately replied: “ I attack hard and everything is going well but Mikko and Jari achieve very fast times “, declared the Spaniard. “ For tomorrow, I don't know. It will be difficult [to catch up with them] because there are not many kilometers left. If they don't have problems, it will be difficult. We will see. »

Behind this trio, the battle for fourth place saw many twists and turns. Sébastien Ogier, recent second in the Rally of Greece, Petter and Henning Solberg continued to exchange positions throughout the day. Saturday evening, it is the Frenchman who occupies the position at the foot of the podium with some 7,4 seconds ahead of Petter. The latter took fifth place from his brother in the final special of the day. The gap between the two Norwegians, however, is only 1,3 seconds!

Sébastien Loeb, for his part, returned to the SuperRally on Saturday morning to try to score a point in the Manufacturers' championship. He fulfills his task wonderfully since he is currently 13th in the general classification. He even set four of the six best times of the day.