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Latvala SD

Latvala tops shakedown times in Portugal

17 maio 2018

After all the hype and speculation before the start of the 52nd Vodafone Rally of Portugal, it was down to the serious business of arriving at the optimal car set-up for competitors on the 4.60km Shakedown stage at Parades on Thursday morning.

Toyota GAZOO Racing World Rally Team’s Jari-Matti Latvala carried out three passes through the gravel stage in front of hundreds of spectators and topped the times with a last run of 3min 03.5sec in his Toyota Yaris WRC.

Sébastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville gave an early indication that this is going to be a thrilling weekend of high-speed gravel action by tying for the second fastest time with runs of 3min 03.8sec.

Sweden’s Pontus Tidemand was the class of the WRC 2 field with a best run of 3min 14.5sec.

Ogier laid down the gauntlet with a first pass of 3min 08.3sec, but Finland’s Latvala eventually topped the times on the first run with a time of 3min 06.3sec.

Drivers took advantage of a cleaner surface for their second run and Sordo topped the early times with a 3min 04.9sec, which was two-tenths of a second up on Neuville. Kris Meeke then shaved another tenth off the Spaniard’s quickest time.

Neuville hit the front at the start of the third runs and took a full second off Meeke’s quickest time but the Belgian’s time was quickly matched by Ogier. Hayden Paddon was also back with a vengeance after missing three rallies and the Kiwi carded a third run of 3min 04.3sec to slot into fourth place behind a tying Ogier and Neuville and third-placed Mikkelsen.

But Latvala was not to be denied and the Finn stormed to the top of the rankings with a third pass of 3min 03.5sec, before the leading crews returned to Exponor to make changes to the car set-up and the WRC 2 crews took advantage of the Shakedown stage, with Tidemand topping the times from Gus Greensmith and Pedro Heller grinding to a halt with a technical issue.

The WRC crews returned to the stage towards the end of the session but none of the tail-enders could make in-roads into the times set earlier in the morning.

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