WRC Rally Finland
Live Text
Sort by
Information
SS2 summary:
* Tanak flies into what seems like a runaway lead...
* ...but Ostberg ends up right on his tail
* Suninen, Latvala and Paddon head the chasing pack
* Championship leader Neuville is only ninth, two places behind title rival Ogier
* Lappi loses time when his car stalls
* Breen loses time with an early puncture
* Tanak flies into what seems like a runaway lead...
* ...but Ostberg ends up right on his tail
* Suninen, Latvala and Paddon head the chasing pack
* Championship leader Neuville is only ninth, two places behind title rival Ogier
* Lappi loses time when his car stalls
* Breen loses time with an early puncture
Information
SS2 results:
Leading stage times:
1 Tanak 9m56.1s
2 Ostberg +1.3s
3 Suninen +6.6s
4 Latvala +9.4s
5 Paddon +10.1s
6 Evans +12.0s
Overall leaderboard:
1 Tanak
2 Ostberg +3.1s
3 Suninen +9.4s
4 Latvala +11.7s
5 Paddon +12.7s
6 Evans +14.6s
7 Ogier +16.3s
8 Mikkelsen +17.1s
9 Neuville +20.7s
10 Lappi +33.2s
11 Breen +49.6s
Leading stage times:
1 Tanak 9m56.1s
2 Ostberg +1.3s
3 Suninen +6.6s
4 Latvala +9.4s
5 Paddon +10.1s
6 Evans +12.0s
Overall leaderboard:
1 Tanak
2 Ostberg +3.1s
3 Suninen +9.4s
4 Latvala +11.7s
5 Paddon +12.7s
6 Evans +14.6s
7 Ogier +16.3s
8 Mikkelsen +17.1s
9 Neuville +20.7s
10 Lappi +33.2s
11 Breen +49.6s
Quote
"Very average," is Paddon's summary. "Very, very loose, as I'm sure everyone's telling you. I just didn't adapt to the conditions."
And that's fifth place for Paddon so far.
Great stuff from Suninen - he's third-fastest, 6.6s off Tanak. That puts him in the same position overall, 9.4s off the Toyota.
Now we're just waiting for M-Sport's third driver Teemu Suninen and the final Hyundai of Hayden Paddon to complete our leaderboard.
Here's Ostberg to cheer Citroen up: he's only 1.3s slower than the previously dominant Tanak on the stage and that places him 3.1s down on the Toyota in the overall lead battle.
Quote
Breen says he had a puncture around 6km onto the stage:
"Fucking disaster, man. There was a rock in front of me. I had a grand steady rhythm and had to drive most of the stage with a puncture."
"Fucking disaster, man. There was a rock in front of me. I had a grand steady rhythm and had to drive most of the stage with a puncture."
Crash
But while one Citroen's flying, the other has a problem - Craig Breen is 47.8s off the pace on the stage!
Ostberg is now only 0.9s off Tanak at the final split...
Quote
Latvala is... happy-ish with that:
"It was OK. The driving was not perfect. I'm braking too early and I'm not confident enough in the fast places. Ott has an amazing time, but no worries. The rally has just started. Let's see what we can do."
"It was OK. The driving was not perfect. I'm braking too early and I'm not confident enough in the fast places. Ott has an amazing time, but no worries. The rally has just started. Let's see what we can do."
Next split in for Ostberg and he's only 1.1s away from Tanak's pace. Promising!
Next in is Latvala, second-fastest to Tanak but 9.4s slower so 11.7s off overall.
Autosport
Here's the full story of Citroen's changes, Thursday pace and confidence: 
Here come the Citroens. Major suspension geometry changes for the troubled C3 here, and yesterday it led to a one-two on the shakedown for Mads Ostberg and Craig Breen, after which Ostberg declared he could do that pace for a fortnight.
Ignoring the fact that this would lead to a lot of speeding tickets back home in Norway if he really did persist for two weeks, Ostberg's optimism looks well-placed. At split two he's only 1.4s off Tanak, which is a couple of seconds closer than anyone else was at that point.
Ignoring the fact that this would lead to a lot of speeding tickets back home in Norway if he really did persist for two weeks, Ostberg's optimism looks well-placed. At split two he's only 1.4s off Tanak, which is a couple of seconds closer than anyone else was at that point.
Lappi's time loss was due to the car stalling under braking.
Evans is second fastest, 12s down on Tanak, so slots into second overall - 14.6s off the Toyota.
Andreas Mikkelsen comes in third-fastest, 16.2s off Tanak's pace but only seven tenths down on nearest non-superhero Ogier.
The overall order is the same so far: Tanak leading Ogier by 16.3s, Mikkelsen by 17.1s and Neuville by 20.7s.
The overall order is the same so far: Tanak leading Ogier by 16.3s, Mikkelsen by 17.1s and Neuville by 20.7s.
Second fastest on the splits so far is Elfyn Evans, in the not-updated-yet M-Sport Ford, but even he is 8s off Tanak at split four.
Whatever the problem was for Lappi leaves him 31.5s down on team-mate Tanak at the end of the stage.
Tanak's pace isn't just about road position - looking at the rest of the field, he's 10s faster on the splits even than the cars running further back in the start order.
But Tanak has destroyed those times - he completes the stage 15.5s faster than Ogier and is now 16.3s clear of the world champion overall after just three stages.
Ogier now comes through 4.5s faster than Neuville, which puts him 4.4s ahead of his title rival in the overall standings.
We expected close times here as a) this is a really close field and b) times are generally tighter on faster rallies. Tanak is throwing that theory out of the water - he's already 13s faster than Neuville on this stage now.
Stopwatch
Neuville completes the stage with a time of 12m06.0s.
Crash
Possibly problem for last year's winner Esapekka Lappi already - he's dropped 15s to the leaders on the early splits and TV crews are reporting that he stopped briefly.
Ogier is through the next stage 2.4s faster than road-opener Neuville, while further back on the stage Tanak is now fastest by 4s.
Current leader Ott Tanak is flying on the early splits - he's 3s faster than Neuville and 2s faster than Sebastien Ogier.
David Evans
All WRC drivers on medium tyre. Don't forget Michelin's new medium is the old soft - the new soft (new for here) is much softer and too soft for anything but a very wet loop. There's nothing wet about this morning - leaving the hotel at 0630 it was already 23 degrees.
Green flag
Neuville is up and running.
Information
Here's what to expect from the rally's first 'proper' stage, described by multiple Finland winner Jari-Matti Latvala:
SS2 Moksi (12.45 miles)
This stage is a mixture of other roads with parts from the Vellipohja, Surkee and Parkkola. The first five or six kilometres haven't been used for the last 10 or 15 years or something like that. After that we come to the Surkee part, which is more familiar.
Looking at this stage as a whole there are some very narrow roads with some short sections on wide roads which are extremely fast, but we're not on these for such long time. The rest of the stage is medium speed.
SS2 Moksi (12.45 miles)
This stage is a mixture of other roads with parts from the Vellipohja, Surkee and Parkkola. The first five or six kilometres haven't been used for the last 10 or 15 years or something like that. After that we come to the Surkee part, which is more familiar.
Looking at this stage as a whole there are some very narrow roads with some short sections on wide roads which are extremely fast, but we're not on these for such long time. The rest of the stage is medium speed.
After the usual Thursday night curtain-raiser, we're about to get under way properly in Finland. Ott Tanak holds a narrow lead from SS1, while Thierry Neuville is first on the road this morning.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage from Rally Finland - the World Rally Championship is back after its summer break and it's going VERY fast and jumping VERY high.
By: Matt Beer
Published:
Lap:
