WRC – Latvala starts strong at Rally Sardinia

The first step of Rally of Sardinia is still far from over but there have already been many twists and turns. If Thierry Neuville and Juho Hänninen exchanged the lead of the event during the morning, the drivers Hyundai are now offside for victory. The i20s WRC fell in Loelle (SS5) with a stop of more than 20 minutes for the Belgian following a suspension problem while the Finn rolled over. As for Hayden Paddon, the new recruit stopped to help the vice-world champion.

The progress of the first stage was significantly delayed following the fire that occurred in Mikko Hirvonen's Fiesta RS WRC on the connecting route between Terranova Sud (SS3) and Coiluna – Crastazza (SS4). The crew in sixth place was able to escape the incident unscathed but the Ford was engulfed in flames. All these events benefited Jari-Matti Latvala who progressed from ninth to first place in just two stages to lead the event at the break!

The gaps remain small since Jari-Matti Latvala only has two seconds ahead of the Citroën of Mads Ostberg, the only real representative of Citroën following the retirement of Kris Meeke (in SS5) while he was racing at the tenth rank. The starting order has a very important impact in this stage: Martin Prokop clings to third place ten seconds behind the lead of the race with only one second ahead of Andreas Mikkelsen who precedes d Robert Kubica's Ford for half a second. Sébastien Ogier is only in sixth place, 16 seconds behind his Finnish teammate, the Championship leader clearly suffering from his sweeper position. Elfyn Evans follows three seconds ahead of Henning Solberg.

Karl Kruuda places the news Peugeot 208 T16 in ninth place overall and leading WRC2 with 26 seconds ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah who completes the top ten. Quentin Gilbert is in 15th place in his Fiesta R5 just ahead of Sébastien Chardonnet's DS3 R5 by less than six seconds. Julien Maurin is in 21st place.