Hi, friends!
We are talking whole weekend about Wales Rally, the latest round of the World Rally Championship. It's all becoming very interesting because five times World Rally Champion Seb Ogier won again and now he is only seven points behind Championship leader Hyundai's Thierry Neuville.
Neuville finished only 5th but not in completely clear fight because his team-mates Mikkelsen and Paddon let him in front of them. It seems that team orders starts to play as the season comes to an end. The big stake is on the plate because it's not easy to win the Championship and they want it very hard. Neuville still has the big chance to win it but will he have nerves for it in the last two rallies?!
He made an 'easy' mistake this weekend and that's why he finished only 5th.
I would say that the biggest dissapointment of the rally was retirement of Toyota's Ott Tanak who retired because of broken radiator after the sump guard felt of the car. The surface in Wales is not soft, it's full of stones and of them probably holed the radiator.
Tanak entered back into the rally under Rally2 rules and took four points on the Power Stage which wasn't the last one of the rally as usually. The Power Stage was special stage number 20 called Gwydir. Latvala was fastest there for Toyota and Tanak finished there 2nd for the same team. Ogier finished 3rd while Championship leader Neuville was 4th. To remind you: Power Stage winner takes five points and all the others the point less untill 5th place.
Today Latvala took the lead before the last loop of stages when Ogier decided to risk it all and finally won it after so many events. Ogier is now 'only' seven points behind Neuville while Tanak has more then 20 points gap behind Neuville and it's now much harder for him.
Craig Breen really had a good rally for Citroen and it's maybe a sign of some better times for a French team. Next season they will have Ogier and they really won't have excuses for a bad rallies. Breen won't drive a WRC car in Catalunya because Seb Loeb will be behind a wheel of the Citroen C3 WRC.
Wales Rally was really a great event and I enjoyed it a lot following it.
Overall results:
Ogier 3:06:12.5
Latvala +10.6
Lappi +35.1
Breen +1:10.4
Neuville +1:14.4
Credit for photo and videos to RedBull and WRC.com.
Enjoy the rest of the day with some beer in your hands!
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