The first day of the 2014 World Rally Championship season is now in the books and it was an impressive day for Ford.
M-Sport Ford's Bryan Bouffier held on to the lead through the final three stages of the day and extended it by over twenty seconds to 38.8 seconds over the Citroën driver Kris Meeke. Robert Kubica made up ground after a bad stage three. Kubica is 39.5 seconds back of his M-Sport Ford teammate Bouffier.
Sébastien Ogier improved over the day's final three stages and is now fourth, 47.3 seconds back. Ogier won the final two stages on the day. Mads Østberg moved up to fifth 1 minute and 20.7 seconds back. Rookie Elfyn Evans dropped to sixth, 17.9 seconds back of Østberg. Jari-Matti Latvala has been making a recovery after being over three minutes back at the end of stage three. Latvala won stage four and finished second to his Volkswagen teammate Ogier on the final two stages. He finds himself in seventh position, 2 minutes and 20.8 seconds back of the overall leader.
Veteran Mikko Hirvonen has been upstaged by his younger M-Sport teammates on day one. Hirvonen finds himself in eighth position, 2 minutes and 46.9 seconds back of his teammate Bouffier. This is Hirvonen's first race back with Ford after two seasons driving for Citroën. Andreas Mikkelsen is ninth, over four minutes back of Bouffier and is the lowest of the entries eligible of scoring manufacturers' points.
This has not been the return weekend Hyundai was hoping for. Thierry Neuville had an accident in stage one end his rally. Dani Sordo finished second to Latvala on stage four and was third overall, 33.7 seconds back of Bouffier. On stage five, Sordo suffered a mechanical failure that has forced him to retire. This was Hyundai's first rally since the 2003 Rally Australia where Belgian Freddy Loix scored the Korean manufactures' final points with an eighth place finish.
Tomorrow features five stages beginning at 2:48 a.m. ET.
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