WRC – Sébastien Ogier makes the difference in Australia

Sébastien Ogier was right in preferring hard tires to soft unlike Jari-Matti Latvala for the second pass of the specials of the second stage of the Rally from Australia. With three hard and two soft against four soft and two hard, the reigning world champion was able to sign two consecutive scratches and regain the lead of the race with ten seconds ahead of his rival for the title. The fight for the last step of the podium is still in full swing between Kris Meeke and Andreas Mikkelsen. If the Norwegian is looking to give Volkswagen a hat-trick, the Citroën driver doesn't see it that way since he regained the advantage by only a second.

Mikko Hirvonen still completes the top five but the driver M-Sport has let go since he is now almost a minute behind the third Polo R WRC. Mads Ostberg finally managed to take the advantage of Hayden Paddon to gain sixth place with an eight second lead. Thierry Neuville found himself eighth despite hitting a mailbox. The Belgian is ahead of Elfyn Evans by a handful of seconds, the latter two having benefited from a crash by Robert Kubica who now completes the top ten ahead of Chris Atkinson.

Yazeed Al-Rajhi remains at the top of WRC2, just three seconds ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah. Jari Ketomaa is also in the mix since he is only around ten seconds behind the category leader. The second stage will end with the two passages of the super special carried out from 10:30 a.m. French time.

The videos of the Rally Australia can be found on this link. Photos are available here.