Tänak in charge in Australia, Ogier manages

Ott Tänak took the advantage over his teammate Jari-Matti Latvala in the second pass of the second stage of the Rally d’Australie. Si le Finlandais s’était dit prêt à respecter des consignes d’équipe, i’Estonien a adopté un rythme soutenu pour s’emparer de la première place. Toyota vise un doublé qui lui serait largement suffisant pour s’assurer du titre Constructeurs face à Hyundai.

The Korean manufacturer is mainly banking on Hayden Paddon who is now on the provisional podium, about ten seconds behind the Finn. The New Zealander took advantage of the poor performance of Mads Ostberg (Citroën) who slipped to 4th position and found himself threatened by Esapekka Lappi (Toyota). However, the Norwegian was in the lead at the start of the stage.

Sébastien Ogier (M-Sport) est bien installé au 6e rang devant son coéquipier Elfyn Evans. Même si Ott Tänak venait à s’imposer, le Français disposerait encore d’une avance de 6 points qui le mettrait à l’abri des points bonus de la Power Stage.

Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) is the title contender in most difficulty, the Belgian playing isolated in 8th place after suffering from his poor position on the road. The Belgian is ahead of Teemu Suninen (M-Sport) and Craig Breen (Citroën) who fell to 10th place after his problems in the morning when he received a 3'50 penalty for being late at the start of the Raleigh super special (SS12).

The second stage will end with the two passages of the 1,27km Destination NSW super special which will be contested from 6:37 a.m. Paris time.