Rally Portugal – SS10 – Thierry Neuville leads Sébastien Ogier and promises suspense for Saturday

Sébastien Ogier overall leader and third in this final special stage of Friday, Thierry Neuville Leading SS10 and second overall… The Frenchman and the Belgian are setting the stage for a thrilling duel starting Saturday! Rain is expected tonight on the stage of… Rally From Portugal, the two World Champions are now separated by exactly 3,7 seconds in the standings.

While Thierry Neuville managed to set the fastest time on the 10th and final stage of the day, Sébastien Ogier has already set three fastest times since Friday morning. Although the time gap between them is small, the driver from Gap was the first to say that this difference ultimately matters very little. Indeed, if rain does fall on the Portuguese roads tonight and tomorrow morning, a gap of less than four seconds could very quickly swing drastically either way with the slightest mishap.

Fourmaux and Solberg lose everything

Those who know something about experiencing misfortune when everything seemed to be going their way are called Adrien fourmaux and Oliver Solberg at the end of the day. Leading the Rally of Portugal before starting SS7, the driver Hyundai He suffered a double puncture, losing nearly 30 seconds at the end of the special stage. This frustrating situation was nonetheless likely. By taking risks with soft tires, even on terrain considered challenging, the driver from northern France was maximizing his chances of success. Unfortunately, going off the road during the Gois stage dashed his initial hopes.

Just a few minutes earlier, Oliver Solberg had experienced the same incident, in the same place! More fortunate, the Swede did not puncture at that spot, but he too had a scare, before losing precious seconds, he who has shown himself capable of regularly competing with the best times in this Rally of Portugal.

It should be noted that in the Rally1 category, Martins Sesks was also surprising on more than one occasion this Friday, but was also held up by a double puncture, in SS10 for him.

In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin remains the category leader, but watch out for Roope Korhonen, who is close behind. The Finn was very consistent on Friday, taking second place overall behind the Bulgarian. Frenchman Yohan Rossel had a more challenging day but remains third in Rally2, 6,4 seconds off the lead. The other Frenchman on the grid, Éric Camilli, is fifth, but further back.

See you at 8am this Saturday (French time), 7am local time, for the start of SS11 in conditions that will undoubtedly be very different!

ALSO READ > The Ogier-Neuville duel intensifies; relive the second day of the Rally of Portugal with our live text commentary.

WRC – Rally Portugal
Rankings after SS10