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WRC Rally of Spain: Sebastien Ogier stretches lead to over 35s

Sebastien Ogier will take a lead of over 35 seconds into the second day of Rally of Spain, as nearest rival Thierry Neuville dropped out of contention with a puncture

Ogier began the second stage of the Friday afternoon loop with a lead of 9.9s after narrowly winning the first, and had his advantage slashed to just 4.6s on SS6 by Neuville, who set a blistering pace to win the stage.

But a puncture for the Hyundai driver on the very next stage cost him over two minutes, which, combined with a devastating time by Ogier, allowed the reigning champion to stretch his lead by a whopping 32 seconds.

Jari-Matti Latvala started the day in seventh, and despite being comprehensively outpaced by Ogier was able to climb all the way up to second place after Neuville's woes with a succession of consistent times.

The Finn, who needs to beat Ogier to keep his World Rally Championship title hopes alive, has 36.6s to make up on his Volkswagen team-mate after the first full day of running.

Mads Ostberg had been set to inherit second when trouble struck for Neuville, but lost time on SS7 as a result of getting caught up in the Belgian's dust cloud having been the next car in the running order.

The Citroen driver sits third, just 0.6s down on Latvala, with countryman Andreas Mikkelsen snapping at his heels a further tenth behind in the fight for the final podium spot.

Mikko Hirvonen dropped 4.1s behind Mikkelsen during the afternoon loop and now lies fifth, ahead of fellow M-Sport Ford driver Robert Kubica, with the third car of Elfyn Evans out of the running for points after crashing out on SS6.

There was drama for Dani Sordo on the same stage, as the Spaniard lost precious time waiting at the start line owing to an error by co-driver Marc Marti over when the Spaniard's allotted start time was.

That puts Sordo almost 90 seconds off the pace in seventh in his home event - but nonetheless the top Hyundai driver after Neuville's puncture.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS7:

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