WRC | Rally Portugal, SS17-18: Ogier, the leadership is solid

Sébastien Ogier played cat and mouse with Ott Tanak and, at the end of the afternoon lap of the second stage at the Rally Portugal, secured the victory which would be his second of the season after the one obtained at the Rally Croatia a few weeks ago.

Ogier took the lead midway through the day, taking advantage first of Kalle Rovanpera’s sensational retirement on SS11 caused by an accident, then by the puncture of the right rear tire on Tanak’s Hyundai i20 N Rally1. At that point, at the start of the afternoon lap, he let his rival vent before changing gear on SS16, the 37 kilometer Amarante, and making the difference.

Thanks to the new points system, Ogier took the 18 expected for whoever finishes the first two stages first. Behind him, however, there are only Hyundais and this, for Toyota, is certainly not a good sign.

Beyond Tanak, who finally showed a weekend worthy of his name, the world championship leader Thierry Neuville placed third. The Belgian put together two intelligent days, free of major errors and focused on always obtaining the best possible result despite him being forced to open all the Friday stages.

In the end, thanks to the retirements of those in front of him and a careful race – without forgetting the precious help of Dani Sordo – he finished the second stage on the podium. Tomorrow he will try to fight for the victory on Special Sunday to further increase his advantage over his first rival in the Drivers’ classification, namely Elfyn Evans.

Dani Sordo finished fourth, last of the Hyundai drivers, but as usual he proved to be fundamental for the team. In fact he protected Neuville throughout the day from the attacks of other riders and avoided threatening him in turn, giving him a more than concrete hand in bringing home important points for this World Championship.

Completing the Top 5 is Adrien Fourmaux, who is constantly growing and confirms the great steps forward made compared to the last season in which he was a starter. Even on gravel the M-Sport Ford driver is showing interesting things, whether he is helped by his starting position or not.

The negative note of the weekend, at least until now, is represented by Elfyn Evans. The Welshman is almost 3 and a half minutes behind the leader and more than 2 minutes behind Neuville, his rival for the title. Never fast, always in great difficulty in all conditions, Evans is experiencing perhaps the worst weekend since he raced for Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Takamoto Katsuta also did badly, after a stage among the protagonists he made a mistake on SS12, breaking the right rear suspension. This forced the Japanese driver to retire, leaving only Ogier to fight with the Hyundais.

Final surprise regarding WRC2, with Jan Solans overtaking Josh McErlean and finishing first in the class ranking. Not to be forgotten, however, is Nikolay Gryazin, first among the Rally2s but not eligible to take points valid for the title this weekend. The Russian commands the operations, but for the distribution of points it is to be considered transparent.

The second stage of the Rally Portugal ends here. The event will resume tomorrow morning with Special Stage 19, the 19.91 kilometer Cabeceiras de Basto 1. The first car will enter the special at 08:05 Italian time.

WRC 2024 – Rally Portugal – Ranking after SS18