Friday - Plenty of action in WRC2 and WRC3

The first full day of action in the WRC2 category of this year’s Vodafone Rally de Portugal saw Pontus Tidemand become the class of the field, claiming the stage win on four of the day’s gravel stages. He also took a second-fastest and, on the stage which was cancelled following Hayden Paddon’s roll and subsequent fire, was awarded the same notional time as all competitors.

Behind Tidemand was a good battle, with Nicolas Fuchs heading Elfyn Evans who was complaining initially of a lack of power in his Fiesta. By the time the crews reached the EXPONOR service park, Tidemand had extended his lead to 35.5 seconds over Fuchs, with Evans a further 17.5 seconds back.

In WRC3, the competition was just as fierce, with the day’s seven stage wins shared between three drivers. Terry Folb took one stage win while Ole Christian Veiby and Simone Tempestini took three each. However, Veiby was playing catch-up all day, having lost more than two minutes on the day’s first stage with a puncture and a loss of turbo boost. It is testament to his determination that he managed to close the gap to Tempestini to less than one and a half minutes.

At the end of the first full day of competition, Tempestini leads, with Martin Koci just 17.1 seconds behind, thanks to a string of top three stage times. Third is Terry Folb, 21.2s further back.

Since the majority of the front-running drivers are also registered for the Junior World Rally Championship, the standings in that category overnight are the same as WRC3.

In the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy, Bernardo Sousa holds the overnight lead, 41.7 seconds ahead of Osian Pryce with DDFT veteran Max Vatanan in third, 54.8 seconds further behind.