Volkswagen Motorsport’s Jari-Matti Latvala took a welcome and well-deserved victory on the 2015 Vodafone Rally de Portugal. The Finn took his first win of the season and headed a VW podium lock-out as the event culminated in front of tens of thousands of passionate rally fans on the famous Fafe stage.
The event returned to the north of Portugal and its spiritual home of Matosinhos for the first time since 2001 and was based at the impressive Exponor exhibition centre. The organisers had put in a huge effort to create a route using iconic stages while developing a modern event for the legendary Portuguese rally fans to enjoy in safety. They had relied on the passion of the fans to take ownership of the importance of safety and they did not disappoint, with an estimated two million fans turning out to watch over the course of the rally with no safety issues reported at all.
Having endured a difficult run of rallies, Latvala benefitted from his road position for the first two days of the rally and made the most of the opportunity. By the end of the first loop of stages on Friday, he had reached the front of the pack, albeit with a slender margin over Rally Argentina winner Kris Meeke.
Championship leader Sébastien Ogier had suffered from being first on the road for the first loop and was looking forward to being able to capitalise on the second run through. However, a fire in the longest stage of the day meant its cancellation and with only two stages available, he was unable to close significantly. While Latvala maintained his lead to the end of the event, after the first day, Ogier was languishing in sixth place, despite a stage win in the afternoon over exceptionally rough stages.
Meeke was in second place behind Latvala though, while Andreas Mikkelsen, now driving the latest specification of VW Polo R WRC, was closing him down, the pair trading times throughout the day.
The morning of the second day saw Meeke extend his advantage over Mikkelsen for second place, using his tyres well. However, it was Ogier who was on a mission, with a couple of cars in front of him briefly, before they suffered problems. Regardless of this, he posted a trio of top three times to climb higher up the overall standings and by the mid-point of the day, was just 3.8 seconds behind Mikkelsen.
Ogier went on to take the win on each of the three stages of the afternoon loop, as Latvala managed his tyres to ensure he had enough soft compound versions available to be able to keep Ogier at bay for the final day of three stages. Ogier was unable to get any closer to Latvala but he did overhaul firstly Mikkelsen, then Meeke to end the day in second place, 9.5 seconds behind Latvala.
This set the event up for a thrilling finale with the prospect of Ogier pushing to catch Latvala, Latvala pushing to keep him behind and Mikkelsen trying to get past Meeke and onto the podium.
On the first stage of the final day. Ogier closed the gap to Latvala by 1.7 seconds but the Finn replied on the following stage, stretching his lead back out by 2.6 seconds. Entering the 11Km Power Stage, Ogier had a mountain to climb – a gap of more than 10 seconds that Latvala had built. In the end, Ogier took the Power Stage win but was unable to close significantly on Latvala and took second overall to the Finn.
Mikkelsen was able to make it an all-VW podium though, as Meeke broke an anti-roll bar on the first stage of the day and despite his best efforts, was unable to keep the Norwegian behind him.
Further back, Ott Tanak had a relatively lonely rally in the new Ford Fiesta RS WRC, consistently putting in top five stage times after team-mate Elfyn Evans retired from the first stage of both Friday and Saturday’s action.
Dani Sordo and Hayden Paddon enjoyed a good fight with Mads Ostberg throughout the rally, the Citroen driver suffering from a lack of turbo boost on the second day eventually hampering his chances. Sordo went on to finish in sixth, ahead of Ostberg with Paddon eighth after losing time with a damaged gearbox on the penultimate day.
In the WRC2 category, Nasser Al-Attiyah dominated the event, notably on the exceptionally rough second run through the stages on Friday, using his experience of endurance and cross country rallying to claim another trouble-free class win. However, the new Skoda Fabia R5 put in an excellent debut, with two cars in the class top three; Esapekka Lappi second and Pontus Tidemund third on the car’s first outing in the WRC. Fourth was Julien Maurin in another Ford Fiesta Regional Rally Car, like Al-Attiyah’s with JWRC champion Stephane Lefebvre, fifth in the Citroen DS3 R5.
Speaking of the Junior WRC, Frenchman Quentin Gilbert took the class win, with a margin of more than three minutes over second-placed Pierre-Louis Loubet and Henri Haapamaki in third. In the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy, Max Vatanen took a convincing win ahead of Marius Aasen and Nils Solans.