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WRC Rally Mexico
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Mikkelsen comes through 42.3s slower than his team-mate.
Now we wait to hear what happened...
Now we wait to hear what happened...
Quote
"I'm waiting to see the gap with Andreas," says Ogier. "Jari, we are not in the same rally.
"I had a very nice, clean drive - I couldn't do more than that. It was for sure much more clean than this morning."
"I had a very nice, clean drive - I couldn't do more than that. It was for sure much more clean than this morning."
Latvala watch - he's close to the third split now, and was 12.8s up at the last check.
Ogier, meanwhile, is in - his time is 38m26.3s. That's a good 45s faster than he was able to record this morning.
Ogier, meanwhile, is in - his time is 38m26.3s. That's a good 45s faster than he was able to record this morning.
Stopwatch
Back up front, Ogier is closing in on the finish. He's through the final split in a time of 33m43.2s, which is 33.3s faster than Mikkelsen who has lost more time since split three.
David Evans
Thierry Neuville has driven his Hyundai i20 WRC back to service and will restart tomorrow. Steering and transmission parts were taken to the Belgian’s stricken car in the Chocolate stage. He and the team worked on the car at the side of the road for the journey back to Leon.
Neuville said: “I made a small mistake on a fast section and that made me a bit wide on the entry for the next corner. I could not get the apex and I hit something with the front-left damaging the suspension.
“Now I have no expectation from this rally. I hope to get back to the points – there are not so many cars on the start. And I want to continue to improve the car. After tomorrow we will see what is our position on the last day for the powerstage, but it’s going to be tough. It’s frustrating because we were doing very well, following the objectives to do a good first day. I got a the bit wrong line and then it was finished.”
Neuville said: “I made a small mistake on a fast section and that made me a bit wide on the entry for the next corner. I could not get the apex and I hit something with the front-left damaging the suspension.
“Now I have no expectation from this rally. I hope to get back to the points – there are not so many cars on the start. And I want to continue to improve the car. After tomorrow we will see what is our position on the last day for the powerstage, but it’s going to be tough. It’s frustrating because we were doing very well, following the objectives to do a good first day. I got a the bit wrong line and then it was finished.”
The third Hyundai, of course, is no longer in the rally - at least for today.
Paddon has lost 7s through the second split, but there's better news for his team-mate Sordo who is 0.6s up on Ogier's pace.
The Spaniard is third overall at the moment.
The Spaniard is third overall at the moment.
Stopwatch
Scary pace from Latvala through the first split, as he takes 7.5s out of Ogier.
Whatever happened Mikkelsen, it doesn't seem to be causing him too many problems at the moment - although he has dropped another 1.6s to Ogier through the third split.
Tanak, Latvala, Camilli, and Prokop are now on the stage too.
Stopwatch
Meanwhile Ogier is now past half way, and has set a pace of 23m1.5s through the third split.
Ouch. Mikkelsen comes through the second split 17.3s down on Ogier.
Stopwatch
Sordo has matched Mikkelsen's pace through the first split and is 0.8s up on Ogier.
19m6.6s is Ogier's time through the second split.
We haven't had a split time from Ostberg yet, but Paddon's has come up and he's 0.6s down on Ogier. That compares quite favourably to the Kiwi's pace through the first split this morning
David Evans
Quick medical update from the service park: Hayden Paddon has had some burns to his left hand treated. The Kiwi caught his hand on the brake disc while changing the left-rear suspension arm after the last stage. His Hyundai team-mate Dani Sordo suffered the rather unusual problem of getting something in his eye.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s fucking painful!” he told Autosport. “Mid-way through the Las Minas stage, I think some dust or something came in the vent. I don’t know, but it keeps making my eye cry a little bit!”
The team has washed the eye out and sent him on his way.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s fucking painful!” he told Autosport. “Mid-way through the Las Minas stage, I think some dust or something came in the vent. I don’t know, but it keeps making my eye cry a little bit!”
The team has washed the eye out and sent him on his way.
Mikkelsen is up by 0.8s through the first split - but there's another 28 miles or so to go. He was faster than Ogier at this point earlier on but ended up slower than his team-mate by the end of SS4, so let's see how he fares this time.
Stopwatch
Ogier comes through the first split in a time of 8m10.2s, which is just over a second faster than his time from the first run on El Chocolate this morning.
While we wait for the stage to get properly up and running, here's this afternoon's tyre choices from the Michelin runners:
Hayden Paddon - five hard
Dani Sordo - four hard, one soft
Mads Ostberg - four hard, one soft
Jari-Matti Latvala - four hard, one soft
Sebastien Ogier - four hard, one soft
Andreas Mikkelsen - four hard, one soft
Eric Camilli - four hard, two soft
Hayden Paddon - five hard
Dani Sordo - four hard, one soft
Mads Ostberg - four hard, one soft
Jari-Matti Latvala - four hard, one soft
Sebastien Ogier - four hard, one soft
Andreas Mikkelsen - four hard, one soft
Eric Camilli - four hard, two soft
Mikkelsen is also on the stage as well.
Green flag
Ogier is now on the stage.
Still no running yet, and we're yet to receive an explanation as to why that's the case.
Still waiting for a start here.
David Evans
Let’s take a moment to stack Ogier’s century against the WRC’s benchmark – the other French Sebastien – the one they call Loeb. The original super-Seb won 37 of his first 100. If Ogier wins on Sunday, that’ll be 35 podium-topping results for him. But… let’s not forget Ogier essentially took a season out in 2012, when he drove a Skoda Fabia S2000 in his first season with Volkswagen.
While we wait for a start, we mentioned earlier that Rally Mexico marks Ogier's 100th WRC start.
The three-time champion has quite a remarkable record in the championship, as David Evans explains...
The three-time champion has quite a remarkable record in the championship, as David Evans explains...
A bit of a delay here as we wait for Ogier to kick things off.
Information
If you missed this stage earlier, here's a preview of what the crews will be tackling from current rally leader, Jari-Matti Latvala:
SS4/7 El Chocolate 1/2 (33.68 miles)
The most demanding stage of the rally. The first (9.94 miles) of the stage is completely new, never driven that road before. There are a lot of character changes in this first part of the stage with some fast sections, then a lot of hairpins and some difficult hairpins downhill and then we have one place which is really narrow. It is changing a lot and that makes this new section quite tricky.
After that you come to the old part, where you are near the top of the mountain – it’s quite fast and flowing down the mountain from there. After that, we go up another mountain with another climb and after that, it’s the most narrow road of the whole championship. It’s so narrow between the rocks; very, very technical, you have to be very careful there. This place lasts for about five kilometres (3.10 miles). It’s so narrow that last year I think I changed the anti-lag setting on the car [to make it less aggressive], but I have some words in the notes to tell me of this characteristic change – this tells me I have to drive in a different way.
The last 15km (9.31 miles) is quite flowing and fast uphill – it’s nice to come out of the narrow section onto this wider road; you feel: “OK, I can breathe a little bit more now…”
SS4/7 El Chocolate 1/2 (33.68 miles)
The most demanding stage of the rally. The first (9.94 miles) of the stage is completely new, never driven that road before. There are a lot of character changes in this first part of the stage with some fast sections, then a lot of hairpins and some difficult hairpins downhill and then we have one place which is really narrow. It is changing a lot and that makes this new section quite tricky.
After that you come to the old part, where you are near the top of the mountain – it’s quite fast and flowing down the mountain from there. After that, we go up another mountain with another climb and after that, it’s the most narrow road of the whole championship. It’s so narrow between the rocks; very, very technical, you have to be very careful there. This place lasts for about five kilometres (3.10 miles). It’s so narrow that last year I think I changed the anti-lag setting on the car [to make it less aggressive], but I have some words in the notes to tell me of this characteristic change – this tells me I have to drive in a different way.
The last 15km (9.31 miles) is quite flowing and fast uphill – it’s nice to come out of the narrow section onto this wider road; you feel: “OK, I can breathe a little bit more now…”
The first two stages coming up are a re-run of the first two that took place earlier today, with El Chocolate set to start in three minutes' time.
After a quick breather, we're preparing to sink our teeth into four more stages this evening, which kick off shortly.
Hello, and welcome back to live coverage of Rally Mexico.
As we say that, Rendina's time disappears from the timing screens.
Incidentally - we're now being shown that Max Redina, who is second last in the WRC2 class, has gone quickest overall on SS6 - and by a whopping 11.2s!
We're not doubting the M-Sport man's credentials, but we're going to wait for a bit before confirming that time.
We're not doubting the M-Sport man's credentials, but we're going to wait for a bit before confirming that time.
Leading times:
SS8 times:
1 Mikkelsen 1m19s
2 Ogier +0.2s
3 Sordo +0.8s
4 Latvala +1.4s
5 Bertelli +1.5s
6 Paddon +2.2s
Overall leaderboard:
1 Latvala 55m28.4s
2 Ogier +21.2s
3 Sordo +33.4s
4 Mikkelsen +43.9s
5 Ostberg +1m28.9s
6 Paddon +1m36.3s
7 Tanak +2m15.3s
8 Prokop +2m29.5s
SS8 times:
1 Mikkelsen 1m19s
2 Ogier +0.2s
3 Sordo +0.8s
4 Latvala +1.4s
5 Bertelli +1.5s
6 Paddon +2.2s
Overall leaderboard:
1 Latvala 55m28.4s
2 Ogier +21.2s
3 Sordo +33.4s
4 Mikkelsen +43.9s
5 Ostberg +1m28.9s
6 Paddon +1m36.3s
7 Tanak +2m15.3s
8 Prokop +2m29.5s
Stopwatch
Here's Fuchs through - he's 1.4s slower than Suninen, but retains a 14-second lead over the Finn ahead of this afternoon's loop.
With Al-Kuwari through, Fuchs is the last man to keep an eye on. He'll get going in a couple of minutes.
Suninen is through next and edges slightly further ahead of Kremer overall with the tenth-fastest time so far on SS6.
Ptaszek was the man who had held Suninen up earlier, and is well out of contention for WRC2 honours. He comes through three seconds slower than Kremer, while the third WRC2 car of Shaymiev splits the pair.
WRC2 challenger Kremer is now in and is 5s down on the WRC leaders. We've a bit of a while to wait for Suninen and Fuchs to see how the battle for first pans out.
Stopwatch
Credit due for Bertelli, who's put in a competitive time on SS6. He records the fifth-fastest time so far, just one tenth slower than rally leader Latvala.
Prokop has also come through, while Bertelli will be the last WRC driver to tackle the stage in a few seconds.
By: Matt Beer
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