Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Ogier leads as Citroen dominates

Citroen continued to dominate the Rally of Turkey on the second loop of the opening day, as Sebastien Ogier and Dani Sordo emerged at the front of a tight pack

Ogier went into the afternoon with a two-second lead over Sordo and won the first two stages to extend his advantage to five seconds. But Sordo retaliated on the final two, winning the first and finishing ahead of the Frenchman on the second to end the loop within three seconds of the lead.

Petter Solberg won the high-speed run through the 10km Halli stage for the second time today, SS8, but lost ground overall on third-placed Mikko Hirvonen after losing too much time on the first two runs of the afternoon. Hirvonen is now nine seconds off the lead in the first Ford.

Solberg's victory on SS8 helped pull him clear of Sebastien Loeb and Jari-Matti Latvala, who switched places back and forth during the afternoon. Loeb finished the day in fifth spot, 0.8s ahead of Latvala and 25 seconds behind Ogier.

Kimi Raikkonen continued his steady improvement on the second loop, posting stage times closer to those of the winner on all four than he was on the day's earlier run. He moved ahead of Matt Wilson into eighth place after SS6 and was within eight seconds of Solberg on SS8. Raikkonen finished the afternoon 14 seconds behind seventh-placed Federico Villagra.

Wilson is ninth, nine seconds behind Raikkonen, while Ott Tanak remains in 10th place, more than one and a half minutes clear of his nearest rival.

The cars now head for Istanbul for a superspecial stage this evening, before a longer second leg of the rally tomorrow.

Times after SS8:
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap
1. Sebastien Ogier Citroen 53m36.4s 2. Dani Sordo Citroen +2.8 3. Mikko Hirvonen Ford +9.2 4. Petter Solberg Citroen +18.3 5. Sebastien Loeb Citroen +25.3 6. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford +26.1 7. Federico Villagra Ford +1:33.8 8. Kimi Raikkonen Citroen +1:48.0 9. Matthew Wilson Ford +1:57.6 10. Ott Tanak Mitsubishi +4:45.9

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Ogier wants to keep lead into day two
Next article Ogier holds lead into leg two in Turkey

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe