Portugal: Ogier leader at midday

The Citroën Racing driver's start to the race was cautious. Fourth overall when he started this morning, the Gapençais occupied 5th place at the end of SS2, then regained his place at the end of the following special, taking advantage of Petter Solberg's puncture. In the last timed portion of the morning, he nevertheless produced a good performance by achieving the scratch, thereby taking command of a classification in which the first four drivers are separated by only 6 seconds. “ Le rally is very long. We got off to a relatively slow start and it took us a little while to wake up., jokes the winner of the 2010 edition. I'm happy, for the moment it's perfect.

Unlike previous events in Sweden and Mexico, the position on the road does not seem to be a disadvantage. So the Citroën drivers will not be able to count on this to widen the gap on Mikko Hirvonen, first to start by virtue of his status as leader in the championship. Sebastian Loeb, best time in SS3, therefore only owes his second place, 2??8 behind his teammate, to the strength of his wrist. “ I prefer that. It's more exciting if you don't have to calculate a strategy », Underlined the seven-time French world champion.

The official Ford team duo occupied 3rd and 4th places, Hirvonen ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala. If the latter made a few small errors, the first complained about the handling of his Fiesta RS WRC.

As for Petter Solberg, he will now have to hope for damage to the top four in the standings to hope to fight for the final victory. Author of the first scratch time of the day, in Santa Clara 1 (SS2), the Norwegian lost more than a minute in the following timed portion due to a puncture on the right front on his Citroën DS3 WRC. He is now 55??8 behind the leader Ogier.