WRC Portugal
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GP2 - Bahrain: Palmer has closed the gap to Vandoorne to 1.4s. But Trummer has just driven a terrible lap - he really should pit for the softs NOW.
Pic passes Haryanto at Turn 11, the same move he pulled on Evans. This is hugely impressive!
Pic passes Haryanto at Turn 11, the same move he pulled on Evans. This is hugely impressive!
WRC - Portugal: Malhao has begun - Evans a couple of minutes into the stage.
GP2 - Bahrain: The drivers who started on hard tyres are now having a huge impact, outpacing those who started on the soft. Quaife-Hobbs is up to eighth and Izawa is flying too.
Why is Rapax leaving Trummer out? He could be doing this too!
Why is Rapax leaving Trummer out? He could be doing this too!
GP2 - Bahrain: Trummer still stays out, unfathomably, and will stop on the last lap of the race, with Vandoorne poised to inherit victory.
WRC - Portugal: No data to bring you from the stage yet (thanks, WRC live timing) but we're hearing that Evan's is about three-quarters of the way into the stage.
GP2 - Bahrain: Leal is attacking Palmer hard for what will become second place. He passes him at Turn 1 with a great outbraking move. He's almost 3s down on Vandoorne.
GP2 - Bahrain: Trummer finally stops from the lead. Now he only has two laps of soft-tyre maximum attack to play with.
GP2 - Bahrain: Trummer rejoins in ninth, and is closing in on eighth-placed Quaife-Hobbs, who is all over Nasr.
Checkered flag
GP2 - Bahrain: Vandoorne wins the opening race of the year at Bahrain, 1.5s ahead of Leal. The battle for third goes to Palmer despite a late-race attack from Coletti.
Pic is fifth on his series debut, from Izawa and the charging Trummer - why didn't he pit a few laps earlier? He could have been on the podium for sure. But, still, not a bad job from starting in the pitlane!
Pic is fifth on his series debut, from Izawa and the charging Trummer - why didn't he pit a few laps earlier? He could have been on the podium for sure. But, still, not a bad job from starting in the pitlane!
GP2 - Bahrain: Nasr finishes eighth and will start Sunday's sprint race from pole position. Binder and Quaife-Hobbs rounded out the top 10, as the likes of Evans and Haryanto suffered dreadful second stints.
Breaking news
WRC - Portugal: Confirmation that Kubica has retired. After finally getting his car out of the ditch he slid into, the recovery effort broke the clutch. Disaster.
WRC - Portugal: Meanwhile, we have a time from Evans. It's 14m08.9s.
Stopwatch
WRC - Portugal: Latvala then comes through 10.8s quicker from Evans.
GP2 - Bahrain: Well, well. Vandoorne makes GP2 look easy, winning on his debut. Not many people can ever say they've done that. Superb execution, right from the start and a perfect race strategy from ART Grand Prix.
WRC - Portugal: Half a dozen cars or so on the stage. Mikkelsen is quicker than Latvala through the first split. Neither of those two have troubled the sharp end of the times this morning.
Quote
Stoffel Vandoorne on his GP2 victory: "Thanks to the safety car we could run longer on the soft tyres, but I still pitted early. I just managed the gap after that. It was a race of tyre management."
WRC - Portugal: While we wait for some serious times, let's have a look at the splits - and Ogier is looking good. He's faster than Tanak. No time for Hirvonen there yet.
WRC - Portugal: Of the drivers to have completed the stage, Mikkelsen came closest to removing his team-mate from top spot but fell slightly short.
Hanninen, Solberg, Prokop and Al Qassimi are also on the leaderboard.
Hanninen, Solberg, Prokop and Al Qassimi are also on the leaderboard.
WRC - Portugal: Hirvonen's dropped a second to Ogier at the first split. Is the rally moving away from the Finn?
Crash
WRC - Portugal: Reports that Tanak has stopped on stage...
WRC - Portugal: Hirvonen rallies (pun-tastic) and pulls the deficit to Ogier on this stage to just 0.4s at the second split.
Breaking news
WRC - Portugal: Tanak is blocking the road - so Hirvonen is stuck.
WRC - Portugal: Hirvonen and the WRC 2 runners have made their way past Tanak's stricken car now - though Ketomaa has somehow got ahead of Mikko.
You'd imagine they'll be awarded some standard times though, so no sense getting caught up with another.
You'd imagine they'll be awarded some standard times though, so no sense getting caught up with another.
WRC - Portugal: "A good morning for us," says Ogier as he brings his VW through in 14m00.0s - so Latvala's quickest!
Ostberg and the two Hyundais, by the way, also fell short of Latvala's early benchmark.
Ostberg and the two Hyundais, by the way, also fell short of Latvala's early benchmark.
WRC - Portugal: We'd bring you results for that stage, but that seems a little pointless given Tanak's off and us not knowing how Hirvonen will receive due recompense for the delay.
While we wait for news on the Hirvonen situation, RCL will take a short break. We will be back in full service in about two hours, though our man-on-the-ground DAVID EVANS will filter in the best bits from the service park.
We have received confirmation that those who were stuck behind Tanak's stricken Ford Fiesta R5 on the previous stage have received notional times. Hirvonen was given the same time as Ogier and the gap between the two remains at 2.4s.
Ogier
Here's our midday report for those looking for a recap as to what has happened on the Rally of Portugal this morning:
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We have 73km of action ahead of us this afternoon, with the second pass through Santa Clara kicking things off again at 15:00.
Breaking news
JML
Our rally newshound DAVID EVANS has unveiled an unpleasant situation that is currently escalating between the teams and the WRC promoter.
Drivers have been requested not to talk to television crews during this weekend's event. Why? You'll have to click the following link and find out...
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Lights out
Evans is onto SS11 and we're up and running again Portugal.
Ogier was quickest on this test this morning, beating Hirvonen by 0.2s with his time of 12m23.0s.
Latvala is 0.8s up on Evans's time at the first split.
bus
As reported by AUTOSPORT, the manufacturers and the WRC Promoter are meeting to try solve the current impasse. And this is where they're meeting.
Right now, right at this moment - the future of the WRC is being discussed upstairs in this bus.
Hanninen and Mikkelsen are now in the stage, while Evans arrives at the end in 12m24.5s.
And here comes Latvala, who was slightly slower than Evans at the final split...
The Finn is about 6s slower than Evans! He says he began to suffer a deflation 10km into the stage and incurred a slow puncture. His time: 12m30.5s.
Mikkelsen, Solberg and Neuville are up on Evans's first split time... but here comes Hanninen, with a puncture! That's his third of the weekend.
Eighth place Prokop arrives at the finish in 12m37.5s. He's running on the hard compound tyre this afternoon while those ahead of him are running on the softer option.
Engine-related issue for Mikkelsen? He lost 26.8s at the final split.
By: Dan Cross, David Evans, Scott Mitchell, Charles Bradley
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