Catalonia: Sordo leader, Ogier adrift

The Hyundai were at the party in the first passage of the first stage of the Rally of Catalonia. Dani Sordo leads his national event one second ahead of his teammate Thierry Neuville winner of SS2. The Spaniard, however, escaped a difficulty by suffering a puncture at the end of the 3rd special.

Sébastien Loeb, the only one to rely only on hard tires, struggled on the first courses but was the fastest in the 38km of SS3. The nine-time champion WRC moved up to 6th place less than a second behind Kris Meeke (Toyota) and a dozen seconds from the head of the race.

Sébastien Ogier (Citroën) had started the day well by winning the first special, but the Gapençais suffered a power steering failure and lost almost 3 minutes. The Frenchman must score more points thanOtt Tänak (Toyota) to prevent him from being titled this weekend.

The Estonian managed his race well, completing the provisional podium ahead of Elfyn Evans (M-Sport). Esapekka Lappi (Citroën) is only 7th, a tenth behind Sébastien Loeb and is only ahead of Teemu Suninen (M-Sport) and Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota), his teammate Ogier now being a good distance from the leading group.

Mads Ostberg (Citroën) leads the WRC 2 Pro with almost 17 seconds ahead of already crowned Kalle Rovanperä (Skoda). Jan Kopecky (Skoda) completes the top three in the category ahead of Gus Greensmith (Ford).

The second pass of the first stage of the Rally de Catalunya is scheduled to start from 15:26 p.m. The event can be followed live with our live text.