Today’s route mixed smooth country roads with the notorious Baumholder military range that is awash with car-breaking kerbstones known as hinkelsteins. It was a long day for the crews covering nine stages and 148.57 kilometres of competition, and was briefly halted by an accident involving Frenchmen Stéphane Lefebvre and Gabin Moreau. The crew left the road in the long Panzerplatte stage, seriously damaging their DS3 WRC. Both were taken to hospital for examinations which revealed fractures. They require treatment for non-life-threatening injuries and the whole WRC family wishes Stéphane and Gabin a fast recovery.

In the competition, Ogier started the day second behind Mikkelsen. A wrong tyre choice meant the World Champion was unable to challenge his team-mate and he was lucky not to lose more time when Mikkelsen overshot a junction in the second stage and was unable to capitalise on his better choice of rubber. One stage later and Ogier had inched ahead, establishing his position at the top of the leaderboard. This afternoon Ogier made the right choices and was able to win two of the four stages in the second loop to cement his position with just under 60 competitive kilometres to run on Sunday. In a bid to fight back, Mikkelsen gambled his tyre choice in the final run through the long Panzerplatte stage but dropped more time, albeit not enough to lose his second position. Neuville, third last night, had a minor off in the opening stage and then lost the power steering in the final stage before the midday service. He set two fastest times this afternoon however. After a troubled morning where he lacked some confidence and lost time with a stall, team-mate Sordo mounted a real challenge and edged his way into third in the final stage by just four-tenths of a second.

Hayden Paddon has climbed from eighth to fifth at the end of the second day. The Kiwi driver clipped a straw ball in the first stage and struggled to push hard without the optimum tyre choice. This afternoon he opted to try different driving techniques and while out of the fight for the final podium position, he has a good advantage over sixth-placed Mads Østberg. He lost time with an overshoot this morning, struggled with tyres like many others, and overnights 32.5 seconds adrift of Paddon. Esapekka Lappi has had a great day, climbing into seventh in his R5 specification Škoda Fabia. The Finn needs to capitalise in Germany, being that none of his nearest FIA WRC 2 Championship rivals are registered for points on this asphalt event. He leads the category ahead of non-points scorer Pontus Tidemand who is eighth overall in similar machinery. Jan Kopecky and Armin Kremer – both also in Skoda R5 cars – are ninth and 10th respectively and set to bag points in the WRC 2 category.

Rally 2 returnees Jari-Matti Latvala and Eric Camilli both completed the day, but Ott Tänak was forced into retirement in SS12 with an alternator problem.

In the FIA Junior WRC Championship, series leader Simone Tempestini continues to lead. The Italian won two of the day’s stages and takes a 17 second lead over Martin Koci into the final day.

Rallye Deutschland – Unofficial Classification after Section 5