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WRC – Neuville extends lead as Meeke crashes out

19.05.18

Rally de Portugal - Saturday morning

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville has extended his advantage after Saturday morning’s loop of Rally de Portugal stages and from a 17.7 second overnight lead has nearly doubled that to 29.9 seconds over Elfyn Evans. The Welshman continues to head Dani Sordo but the battle remains intense with the Spaniard now just five seconds adrift.

The longest day of competition lay in wait for the crews today with two loops of three stages split by service, and included the longest test of the rally, Amarante at 37.60 kilometres.  Neuville and Evans were closely matched in the first two stages, Neuville marginally faster, but Evans clawed back time with a stage win in the second. However, the Belgian powered through the third stage and added an impressive 17.2 seconds to his lead over the Welshman as the crews headed back to the mid-leg service. Dani Sordo continues to impress in the second non-registered Hyundai, despite not having the same good feeling with the car as yesterday. After some set-up changes he was back in the groove in the final stage, pushing hard to close the gap to Evans to just five seconds.

Teemu Suninen is also impressing in the Fiesta WRC and the Finn is holding off Esapekka Lappi who is within striking distance in fifth overall. Mads Østberg continues his learning curve in the C3 WRC and is focused on increasing his speed as the rally goes on. He is 16.6 seconds behind Lappi but has a comfortable cushion to Craig Breen, the Irish driver dropping lots of time yesterday when he stopped to change a puncture. The remaining positions on the top 10 leaderboard are filled by the FIA WRC 2 Championship crews, led by Citroen’s Stephane Lefebvre. The Frenchman now heads Pontus Tidemand, who has climbed up the leaderboard with three fastest stages times this morning. Gus Greensmith lost the category lead with a puncture.

Kris Meeke went into another unfortunate retirement this morning when he slid wide down a bank and into the trees while holding seventh. Rally 2 returnees Sebastien Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen all headed back out into the stages today, Latvala taking the opening stage win.

The FIA Junior and WRC 3 Championships are being led by Dennis Radstrom, the Swede with a massive advantage over Callum Devine.