The first full morning of competition in this year’s Vodafone Rally de Portugal showed what this year’s FIA World Rally Championship has come to expect so far – diversity. Each of the three stages was won by a different driver – with a three-way tie on the last of the trio - and the top four positions were covered by less than 1.5 seconds by the time the crews arrived back at EXPONOR for the mid-day service.
Hayden Paddon set the early pace, claiming the win on the morning’s first stage, ahead of Latvala and Kris Meeke in a resurgent Citroen. Championship leader and road-opener, Sebastien Ogier, said he was going as fast as he felt possible but team-mates Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans fared better, taking third and second-fastest on the following stage respectively. On this test, Paddon’s Hyundai shut down and he was forced to stop and reset, losing time and dropping to sixth as a result.
Here, Meeke climbed to second overall with Tanak less than a second behind. Meeke’s team-mate Craig Breen was revelling in his Citroen to climb to fourth with Evans taking fifth.
On the final test of the morning, Tanak set the early pace but running further back on the road, Breen, who was enjoying his morning hugely, equalled his time, the pair sharing the stage win. But then, two cars later, fellow Citroen driver Kris Meeke posted a third identical time on the 27.5Km Ponte de Lima stage to make it a three-way tie for the win.
Latvala dropped time to the three winners but Evans was the big loser, completing the stage with a puncture and dropping to 10th as a result.
This meant that as the crews headed for service, Latvala held a slender lead, with Meeke 0.5s behind and Tanak, a further 0.7s back. Craig Breen is in fourth, 0.2s behind Tanak with Ogier in fifth, 3.4s adrift, thanks to a better time on the last stage as the road didn't clean as much as the previous two.
In WRC2, Andreas Mikkelsen was the early leader despite the stages becoming increasingly rougher with the passing of the more powerful World Rally Cars. He, Teemu Suninen, Pontus Tidemund and Eric Camilli enjoyed a close battle, which culminated with Mikkelsen arriving at service with a margin of 36s over Tidemund with Suninen 2.4s behind and Eric Camilli just 15.2s further back.
Casualties of the day included Stephane Lefebvre in the Citroen, who slid wide and clipped a bank, tipping his car into a roll. He continued but slowly with a lot of damage and with two punctures and only one spare wheel. Also Jose Pedro Fontes crashed his R5 Citroen heavily into a tree, causing the first stage of the day to be stopped. Both crew were taken to hospital for medical checks.
Khalid al Qassimi’s day also started auspiciously, with his car leaving the morning service, before the stages, six minutes late and incurring a one-minute penalty before the action had begun.
Following service, the crews head back out for a repeat of the three stages, although this time round, they likely to be much rougher. They will also context the street stage in Braga twice before arriving back at EXPONOR for the day’s final service and parc ferme.