Normal service was resumed on the penultimate afternoon of this year’s Vodafone Rally de Portugal, with Sebastien Ogier claiming the win on each of the three stages which made up the second and final loop of stages to arrive at the Algarve Stadium service park with a convincing 38-second lead.
The story of the afternoon was again tyres. Crews using hard tyres struggled to find grip due to the wet-in-places road conditions and the lower than expected temperatures. However, those with soft tyres managed much better grip but higher wear, with many arriving at stage ends with tyres completely worn.
Ogier once again demonstrated his ability to manage his tyres over the full loop of stages, taking more than 30 seconds from second-placed Mikko Hirvonen over the three stages, to end the day with a 38.1s margin at the top of the leaderboard. The Finn had nothing to come back at Ogier with and, by his own admission, was aiming for the finish and potentially, additional power Stage points.
Third place at the end of the day was held by Citroen’s Mads Ostberg, the Norwegian happy to potentially be in a podium position and with Power Stage points also in his sights. He also admitted he was the only driver left with a set of new soft tyres for the final day.
Fourth place remains the property of Dani Sordo in the first Hyundai but team-mate Thierry Neuville had to surrender the fifth place he held at lunchtime, after hitting something in the long stage and losing time with broken rear suspension. Henning Solberg, the sole runner on Pirelli tyres, passed him, as did Andreas Mikkelsen in the second VW Polo R.
In WRC2, Jari Ketomaa suffered power steering problems on the first stage of the afternoon and was forced to stop the car and switch the engine off to reset the systems. As a result, he maintained the class lead over Nasser Al-Attiyah but the Qatari driver closed to within 2 seconds of the Finn. Al-Attiyah then went faster over the next two stages to end the day leading the class from Ketomaa by 11.2seconds. Pontus Tidemund holds third place, two minutes further back.