Thursday, February 6, 2014

Ogier Takes Rally Sweden Lead

Sébastien Ogier won three of the six stages today at Rally Sweden and took a 5.8 second lead over his Volkswagen teammate Andreas Mikkelsen in the overall standings.

The Frenchman won the first two stages on the day but lost precious time to the Norwegian in the following three stages, two of which Mikkelsen won. On the final stage of the day Ogier took victory with Mikkelsen having his worst stage of the day finishing eighth, six seconds back.

Ogier and Mikkelsen lead a Volkswagen 1-2-3 in the overall standings after day two. Their Volkswagen teammate Jari-Matti Latvala is third, 12.2 seconds back. He finished third on four of the six stages today.

M-Sport Ford driver, Estonian Ott Tänak won stage five and is fourth overall, 14.8 seconds back. Mads Østberg rounds out the top five, 22.5 seconds back. Østberg's best finish of the day was a second on the day's final stage, 1.5 seconds off of Ogier.

Mikko Hirvonen is sixth, also 22.5 seconds seconds back of Ogier. Thierry Neuville is having a much better second rally with Hyundai. He is seventh overall, 32 seconds off the leader and the Belgian came close to his first stage win of the season when he finished a half second off of Tänak on stage five. His Hyundai teammate Juho Hänninen is ten seconds behind him in eighth position.

The top Swede is Pontus Tidemand is ninth, trailing Ogier by 44.6 seconds. Kris Meeke is tenth, 46.6 seconds back and Robert Kubica is eleventh, 59.9 seconds.

Tomorrow features nine stages of Rally Sweden. The first stage of the day begins at 2:16 a.m. ET.