Reigning Champion Sebastien Ogier took his third stage win in a row on the final stage of day three of the 2015 Vodafone Rally de Portugal, to set up the prospect of a thrilling finale to this year’s action.
The Volkswagen driver went through the stage 4.9 seconds faster than event leader and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, who maintains his lead of the event but crucially, saw his advantage cut to just 9.5 seconds by the end of the penultimate day.
However, importantly for Ogier, he passed Citroen’s Kris Meeke to claim second overall behind Latvala with just three stages of the event to go.
Third-fastest was the third VW Polo R WRC, of Andreas Mikkelsen, closing the gap between himself and Kris Meeke, now in third, to just 1.1 seconds with the three stages to run tomorrow (Sunday).
There was heartache for Hayden Paddon though, who overhauled his Hyundai team-mate, Dani Sordo on the previous test. He hit a rock in the stage and broke the gearbox, losing all the oil in the process and sixth position, dropping back behind Sordo.
Ott Tanak was fifth fastest on the stage and retains a relatively lonely fifth place overall, 50 seconds behind Mikkelsen and 45s ahead of Sordo.
In WRC2, Nasser Al-Attiyah maintained his domination of the class, taking another stage win 24 seconds ahead of Esapekka Lappi who ends the day second in the class, 49 seconds behind Al-Attiyah in the first of the new Skoda Fabia R5s. Third at the end of the day was Pontus Tidemund in the second Skoda, a further 16 seconds back with Stephane Lefebvre fourth.