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WRC Rally of Portugal
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Ogier is in with a 25m07.9s, 11.1s slower than Neuville.
Latvala again is the quickest of the Rally 2 runners - and is neck and neck with Neuville at the seventh split.
In case you missed the news earlier on, that was Meeke crashing out of seventh overall on the Amarante stage (which is still active).
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Mikkelsen comes in and is 17.1s shy of Neuville's best.
"We made some small changes before the stage," says Neuville, "and obviously it's quite slippy so I decided to push hard, it seems like the time is good. We have to be careful this afternoon."
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Neuville is in and he's fastest, beating Lappi by 8.7s and Evans by 17.2! He more than doubles his overall lead!
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"Everything's fine but I could tell everything wasn't going so well and didnt really know what to do to change it," says Evans. "I didn't feel I was getting any traction."
The gap between Evans and Sordo for second overall is now 5s.
Sure enough - Evans sets a 25m14.0s and loses 6.6s to Sordo. Evans is fourth in the stage.
An important point is that Sordo looks like he'll close some of the gap to Evans in second overall - Evans is 2.9s off him at the final split.
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"I do my best and I push," says Sordo, "I do all I have to, it was a clean stage, Lappi is quite fast."
Sordo is home and is second - 25m07.4s, 1.9s off Lappi.
Neuville continues to be the fastest out there - 7s under Lappi at the penultimate split, and 11.1s quicker than Evans.
Sordo is just 0.5s off Lappi at the final split.
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"No issues," says Suninen, "it's so sandy it's not cleaning after one car or two cars."
Suninen finishes and sets a 25m10.0s, he's second 4.5s off Lappi.
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"Everything is [achievable]," says Lappi, "still a long afternoon coming up, we were maybe 15s shy of the podium before this one, the feeling is nice, I'm enjoying the driving. There's a lots of sand [on this stage] but it's the same for everyone."
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"It is not easy to catch Lappi," says Ostberg, "every car on the road is helping and to be honest I don't want to risk anything. I'm just here to finish, I'm increasing my speed but he's increasing his as well."
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Sure enough, Lappi goes top with a 25m05.5s, 11.8s quicker than Ostberg.
Lappi continues to be rapid though - he's 10.4s up on Ostberg in the final split.
Ostberg as expected smashes Breen's time - 17.7s quicker with a 25m17.3s
Neuville continues to be quickest out there. He's 5s quicker than Evans after four splits - maybe he was saving his tyres in the last stage after all...
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Breen has set the first time of the stage - 25m35.0s
Looks from replays that the rear of Meeke's Citroen came around on a turn, and then it got its wheel into a dip and went over.
His car is on its side, in the trees, with big front end damage - both Meeke and his co-driver are out of the car OK thankfully.
Crash
Meeke has crashed!
Evans can't match Lappi so far - he's 0.9s off him after two splits - but Neuville can! He's 0.4s up at the first split.
Suninen also is off Lappi's time - he's 1.1s slower at the third split.
Lappi now is 2.5s faster than Ostberg next up after four splits.
Sordo can't match Lappi in the first split - he's 0.7s shy of his time.
Lappi's quickest again after three splits - 1.5s under Ostberg now.
Lappi again is quickest after two splits - 0.6s under Ostberg's time.
At the first split Lappi is fastest of all - 0.6s quicker than Ostberg.
Meeke is 10.3s quicker than Breen after four splits. Meanwhile after three splits Osteberg is just 0.1s under Meeke's mark!
Meeke's even further ahead in the second split - 7.1s up on Breen.
Meeke is 2.3s quicker than Breen in the first split.
Green flag
The Amarante stage is under way, Craig Breen is away.
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By: Matt Beer
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