Live text
WRC Rally of Portugal
Live Standings
presented by
Stopped
Summary
Live Text
Sort by
Latvala's battered car drops another 5.1s to Ogier on that short stage.
With a very mangled front end and plenty of bits misplaced, Latvala's Toyota takes to the Braga streets next.
Stopwatch
A benchmark time of 1m48.8s on the first run from Ogier.
Green flag
Ogier has begun the first run of the Braga stage in evening sunshine and in front of a huge crowd.
When we had a lead group of eight cars in under nine seconds, it looked like those short stages might have the potential to shuffle the order quite a bit.
That's no longer the case to quite such an extent, but Tanak's only carrying a 3.6s lead to Braga and he's got something "bent" in his car from an SS6 impact.
That's no longer the case to quite such an extent, but Tanak's only carrying a 3.6s lead to Braga and he's got something "bent" in his car from an SS6 impact.
We still have two more stages to go tonight too - a pair of runs around the streets of Braga.
That surely can't be so dramatic...? It's coming up in about 15 minutes.
That surely can't be so dramatic...? It's coming up in about 15 minutes.
Information
And that now gives us a top 10 that looks like this:
1 Tanak
2 Sordo +3.6s
3 Ogier +6.2s
4 Breen +10.8s
5 Evans +18.1s
6 Neuville +23.4s
7 Hanninen +49.8s
8 Lappi +1m05.6s
9 Mikkelsen +3m16.5s
10 Ostberg +3m49.6s
Oh, hi Mikkelsen.
1 Tanak
2 Sordo +3.6s
3 Ogier +6.2s
4 Breen +10.8s
5 Evans +18.1s
6 Neuville +23.4s
7 Hanninen +49.8s
8 Lappi +1m05.6s
9 Mikkelsen +3m16.5s
10 Ostberg +3m49.6s
Oh, hi Mikkelsen.
Phew!
Right, let's go through what's just happened car by car, starting with the order as they began SS7 and what then happened to them.
1 Tanak: hampered a bit by something bent in his front suspension
2 Latvala (+0.1s): rolled, lost nearly five minutes
3 Paddon (+3.7s): car cut out for 10 minutes
4 Breen (+4.8s): broke a damper, pressed on
5 Meeke (+6.2s): puncture then broken suspension, retired
6 Ogier (+8.2s): didn't enjoy being first on the road
= Sordo (+8.2s): fine and dandy
8 Neuvllle (+8.9s): got stuck behind Latvala's bent car
9 Evans (+15.6): hunky-dory
10 Hanninen (+42.0s): all smooth
11 Lappi (+49.2s): holed intercooler, loss of power
1 Tanak: hampered a bit by something bent in his front suspension
2 Latvala (+0.1s): rolled, lost nearly five minutes
3 Paddon (+3.7s): car cut out for 10 minutes
4 Breen (+4.8s): broke a damper, pressed on
5 Meeke (+6.2s): puncture then broken suspension, retired
6 Ogier (+8.2s): didn't enjoy being first on the road
= Sordo (+8.2s): fine and dandy
8 Neuvllle (+8.9s): got stuck behind Latvala's bent car
9 Evans (+15.6): hunky-dory
10 Hanninen (+42.0s): all smooth
11 Lappi (+49.2s): holed intercooler, loss of power
Quote
Lappi is in, still struggling with his holed intercooler but notes "it looks like other people have had bigger problems than us". Yep!
Twitter
Pictures are emerging of Latvala's car after his crash.
Quote
"Car just stopped. We lost the throttle. We moved every wire we could but it's just one of those intermittent problems and it just fired up again. When this run of bad luck is over, it'd better bloody be worth it... That's buggered our rally," says Paddon.
Paddon has made it, 11 minutes off the pace and out of the hunt for the lead. But he hasn't caused an inferno this year at least.
Crash
Paddon has got his car restarted and is running again, but he's lost 10 minutes.
Latvala is still running having lost five minutes.
Meeke is out.
Tanak and Breen both mangled things on either this stage or the one before, but because everything else went crazy they're still first and fourth.
Neuville is fifth but wants 20s back from the organisers because he felt he lost that much behind Latvala's limping Toyota. He's 23.4s off the lead...
Think that covers everything!
Latvala is still running having lost five minutes.
Meeke is out.
Tanak and Breen both mangled things on either this stage or the one before, but because everything else went crazy they're still first and fourth.
Neuville is fifth but wants 20s back from the organisers because he felt he lost that much behind Latvala's limping Toyota. He's 23.4s off the lead...
Think that covers everything!
Right.
It's game over for Meeke, that was more than a puncture. Info from Citroen:
Meeke remains parked after letting Ostberg through.
Twitter
News from Hyundai on Paddon...
Breen is fifth fastest - but reveals he broke a damper on that stage. He ends up fourth on the overall leaderboard behind Tanak, Sordo and Ogier.
Meeke's delay with that puncture change was five and a half minutes. He's now pulling over to let more cars past.
Neuville was 19s off the pace set by Sordo as he drove around Latvala. For now that's put Neuville in fifth place, 23.4s off Tanak's provisional lead.
Twitter
Tanak felt he'd been limping through that one with slight damage from the previous stage but it looks like he'll still have the rally lead.
Stopwatch
Meanwhile Sordo comes through with the fastest stage time so far. That puts him in a provisional second place behind Tanak, 3.6s off.
As Citroen's tweet shows, Meeke is changing a puncture.
Twitter
Neuville says he nearly went off the road three times while following Latvala before the Toyota let him past. He'll be pushing to get an adjusted time.
Quote
Latvala has reached the stage end with considerable damage to his Toyota and a time loss of nearly five minutes.
"At the beginning of the stage, I think the second braking, something changed, the car was not sticking at all. It felt very, very strange. We damaged something on the exhaust side and we had to drive in road mode."
"At the beginning of the stage, I think the second braking, something changed, the car was not sticking at all. It felt very, very strange. We damaged something on the exhaust side and we had to drive in road mode."
Three drivers who have led this rally during the day all in trouble on this stage!
Crash
And now Paddon has stopped too!
Crash
Meeke is stopped on the tracking system!
Latvala's pause was to let Tanak through. He's back on the move again.
Neuville is through, 16.5s slower than Ogier - and it seems that all came from having to get around a slow-moving, damaged Latvala.
Stopwatch
Meanwhile Paddon is the pacesetter at split two, 4s up on Ogier and 4.3s faster than Evans, who are his nearest rivals there.
Now Latvala stops on the stage.
Stopwatch
Ogier finishes the stage in 19m22.8s. He was sixth overall coming into this one and will gain from Latvala's delay. That's his road-sweeping stint over for now.
"I'd say I'm happy with my day. I didn't do mistakes and I pushed as hard as I can. But this one especially was difficult. Let's see how many cars we have in front of us tomorrow. As many as possible will help."
"I'd say I'm happy with my day. I didn't do mistakes and I pushed as hard as I can. But this one especially was difficult. Let's see how many cars we have in front of us tomorrow. As many as possible will help."
Stopwatch
Further down the start order, Meeke is second to Neuville at split one, 0.2s off.
Crash
Latvala's time deficit is nearly three and a half minutes now as he reaches the final split. And Neuville looks like he's lost nearly 20s getting around the Toyota.
By: Matt Beer
Published:
Lap:
