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WRC Portugal

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The VW driver crosses the finish in a rather slow time of 13m08.2s. The problem?

"Power steering! I lost it in the stage - I'm not entering the 'Strong Man Competition'!"
Stopwatch
Solberg goes quickest with a time of 12m22.7s.
Stopwatch
Neuville crosses the finish in his Hyundai i20 and does so in 12m12.9s to set a new benchmark time.
Team-mate Sordo isn't as quick, setting a time of 12m17.6s.
And here comes Ostberg who is very much in contention for a podium finish this weekend. The Norweigan's time is 2.7s slower than Neuville's.
Stopwatch
Rally leader Ogier arrives at the finish after flying - not literally, of course - through the stage. His time: 12m04.7s!

Was going on the soft tyre a good idea?

"We're going to see at the end of the loop..." says the reigning champion.
Which also means the Polo R WRC has notched up 200 stage wins since its return!
Not that Hirvonen will be celebrating, as he finishes Santa Clara 7.4s behind Ogier.
Checkered flag
SS11 results: 1 Ogier 12m04.7s; 2 Hirvonen +7.4s; 3 Neuville +8.2s; 4 Ostberg +10.9s; 5 Sordo +12.9s; 6 Solberg +18.0s.

Overall: 1 Ogier 2h26m50s; 2 Hirvonen +9.8s; 3 Ostberg +45.8s; 4 Sordo +1m05.3s; 5 Neuville +1m28.3s; 6 Solberg +3m18.9s.
Next up is the 31.90km Santana de Serra stage, which is being tackled in the opposite direction this year. It gets underway at 15:55.
We've just been fiddling with our abacus and we reckon that 200th stage win means the VW Polo R has won 65% of all the stages it has competed in since its debut last year. Impressive stuff.
Lights out
Santana de Serra is up and running. It's a long stage - the longest of the event, no less - so it'll be a while before drivers reach the finish line.

To give you a rough idea how long it will be, Ogier completed it this morning in 23m10.2s, ahead Hirvonen and Ostberg.
Latvala is 0.1s and 2.4s up on Evans at the first and second split respectively.
Al-Qassimi and Hanninen are struggling to keep up with the pace through this test - the former is 20.5s behind Evans at the second split, the latter 9.0s.
Latvala, meanwhile, looks poised to beat whatever Evans will do as the Finn is a good 2.4s quicker through splits two and three.
Neuville is quickest of all at the first split as he begins to make his way through SS11. Still waiting for our first finisher to arrive (Evans).
Away from social media, Evans completes the stage in 23m18.7s.
Latvala is through in 23m18.3s. Sounds like he's ruing his tyre decision this afternoon:

"It's so damp on the ground and the temperature is not high enough for these (hard) tyres."
Frontrunners are now all in the stage. Neuville appears to be going well and is 1.5s quicker than Ogier at the second split.
Times for SS12 so far: 1 Latvala 23m18.3s; 2 Evans +0.4s; 3 Hanninen 21.9s; 4 Prokop +53.3s.
All eyes on Neuville, who lost 22.6 by the fifth split. Possible puncture?
The Belgian appears to be trundling towards the finish. He was running in fifth overall before this mishap (whatever that might be).
Crash
And he's arrived at the finish. Looks like a broken suspension on the Hyundai I20, which has subsequently shredded a rear tyre.

"I hit something," he says. "I can drive, everything is still working."

Er, how?!!
Neuville lost 2m07.5s in total with his issue.
Team-mate Sordo had less of a torrid time and arrives at the finish 12.0s slower than Latvala's best.
Ostberg slots into third place with 23m26.2s. That'll surely be fourth once Ogier arrives...
Stopwatch
...and here comes the reigning champion, with a time of 23m00.6s to go quickest!

"It's difficult," said Ogier. "Not so muddy like this morning. We pushed a little bit more at the end."

And Hirvonen is 11 slower!
Checkered flag
SS 12 results: 1 Ogier 23m00.6s; 2 Hirvonen +11,0s; 3 Latvala +17.7s; 4 Evans +18.1s; 5 Ostberg +25.6s; 6 Sordo +4.1s.

Overall: 1 Ogier 2h49m50.6s; 2 Hirvonen +20.8s; 3 Ostberg +1m11.4s; 4 Sordo +1m35.0s; 5 Neuville +3m53.5s; 6 Solberg +4m02.7s.
Quote
Hirvonen doesn't sound too confident of clawing back the 20.8s deficit to Ogier.

"The tyres are completely gone," he said at the finish of SS12. "He (Ogier) is just running away and I can't do anything about it."
Malhao is our final stage of the day and Evans should be making his way into it at 17:05. That's in three minutes, if you don't know what time it is at the moment (buy a watch, eh?).
Malhao is a 22.15km test which Latvala went quickest on this morning. The VW driver completed it in 13m58.1s, ahead of team-mate Ogier. Hirvonen was given the same time as Ogier after Tanak blocked his path with his mid-stage mishap.
Split times are - rather slowly - coming in. Latvala is 4.6s up on Evans at the 8km interval.
While we wait for the WRC drivers to arrive at the finish, we'll bring you up to speed on what's going on in WRC2.

Well, Nasser Al-Attiyah won SS12 and stole the overall lead from Jari Ketomaa. The Qatari driver is making his WRC season debut in Portugal this weekend.

The difference between them is a slender 2.9s.
Evans completes the stage in 14m06.8s.
Stopwatch
Latvala is up next and is 13.0s quicker than Evans!
Neuville is onto SS13 and this is going to be a painful experience for the Belgian who'll need to nurse his Hyundai i20 to the finish.
Breaking news
AUTOSPORT understands the drivers will be talking to WRC TV at the end of the stage. Agreement on this point has been reached during the meeting between manufacturers and the WRC Promoter.
Neuville's split times don't make for pleasant viewing. He's 21.9s and 42.4s off the pace in the first and second splits respectively. He'll lose fifth place to Solberg at this rate.
Ostberg is 2.0s quicker than Sordo at the first interval.

By: Dan Cross, David Evans, Scott Mitchell, Charles Bradley

Published: