Kris Meeke notched up his first stage win in the C3 WRC this afternoon to take the lead of Rally Mexico, the third round of the FIA World Rally Championship. The Northern Irish driver won the day’s opener and heads the field after five stages in the mountains high above Guanajuato today. Reigning FIA World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier is 20.9 seconds adrift with Thierry Neuville moving into third as team-mates Hayden Paddon and Dani Sordo hit last minute problems.

After yesterday’s opening super special stages in Mexico City, and the subsequent cancellation of today’s first two stages due to the late arrival of the car transporters, the rally resumed this afternoon and opened with the longest stage of the event, the 54.90 kilometre El Chocolate where virtually all the crews experienced issues with overheating. One run through the second mountain stage then preceded three short spectator stages before the overnight halt back in León. 

Meeke, joint second last night, powered into the lead after the first stage but then dropped time in the second when he stalled twice. The C3 WRC was however the only car not to experience overheating problems and the Northern Irish driver went on to win one of the super special stages to take the advantage heading into the longest day of competition tomorrow. Ogier opted for a safe tyre choice today and while he had an overheating engine in the first stage, the Frenchman powered on without problems and will be hoping the team can help manage the temperatures for the remainder of the event. Paddon led the Hyundai challenge until the first of three spectator stages, but the Kiwi driver lost nearly 90 seconds in the short 1.09 kilometre Guanajuato street stage with an unconfirmed problem. He dropped to seventh with his third position taken by team-mate Dani Sordo. All three Hyundai i20s then picked up misfires on the closing two stages, but Neuville fared the best, moving into third while Paddon retained seventh and Sordo dropped further down the order. 

Juho Hänninen is currently the lead Toyota driver in fourth, the Finn having led overnight after the two super special stages in Mexico City. He had to manage temperatures too and heads team-mate and Rally Sweden winner Jari-Matti Latvala who fared the worst in the first stage when he lost the brakes and had to run in road mode because of overheating in the Yaris WRC. He lost over 90 seconds in the first stage alone and now sits in eighth. Ott Tänak ran in road mode for some of the first stage, suffering the same as his rivals, and the Estonian is fifth over a minute and a half adrift after a tricky day. Stéphane Lefebvre is sixth; like team-mate Meeke he escaped engine problems but instead suffered an issue with the power steering in his first outing in Mexico in a World Rally Car.

Pontus Tidemand overhauled Eric Camilli for the lead in the FIA WRC 2 Championship and the Škoda driver tops the category standings by 35.4 seconds and is also ninth overall. Third in WRC 2 is local hero Benito Guerra who broke a wheel in the Guanajuato street stage this evening.

Rally Mexico – Provisional results after Section 3