SS14 - Mikkelsen on the march

The penultimate stage of the third day of competition on the Vodafone Rally de Portugal was another stage that went to Volkswagen Motorsport’s Andreas Mikkelsen. The Norwegian had been on a charge all day and this stage was no different – he went through almost 6 seconds faster than Sebastien Ogier in second, to close the overall gap to just 0.5seconds.

Mikkelsen had taken hard tyres for the afternoon’s loop and felt it took a while for these to come into their own. The split times showed this, with his pace increasing as the stage went on. By the end, he was fastest, with team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala second over the stage. Leader Kris Meeke was fifth fastest, saying he was losing out having taken two spare tyres.

Dani Sordo was third fastest with Ogier complaining of low grip and just fourth-fastest.

Overall, Meeke maintains the lead although his margin is now down to 57.7 seconds over Ogier. However, Mikkelsen is now just 0.5s behind his team-mate.

In WRC2, Pontus Tidemand suffered a puncture and was forced to stop and change it, seeing his advantage over Nicolas Fuchs disappear instantly. Hubert Ptaszek also lost transmission at the rear of his car and Marius Aasen was caught in his dust, losing time as a result.