RALLY GUANAJUATO MEXICO – DAY 2
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia lead from Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena, so the overall classification of Rally Mexico hasn’t evolved during what has been an eventful second day! The Citroën Total World Rally Team crews still have a good lead over their rivals, and look set to give the DS3 WRC its first World Rally Championship victory.
The scenario of the sweeper and the hunter is onethat has been repeated many time in the events run on gravel in the World RallyChampionship, and today it thrilled all those following Rally Mexico. Sébastien Ogier,leading by a short head after the opening day and obliged to go first on the stages, playedthe first role. While sweeping the trajectories for one’s pursuers is never the most pleasantof tasks, it is even less so when the hunter is called Sébastien Loeb!
The seven-time world champion soon made short work of his young team-mate. Loeb setthe fastest time in Ibarrilla 1 (SS11) despite a slow puncture in the final kilometers, andtook first place in the overall classification by a few seconds. Ogier then ran into difficultiesin Duarte, a narrow, dusty section, in which he lost some fifteen seconds to his rival. At themidday service halt the two DS3 WRCs were separated by twenty seconds. “We knew thatour second place on the road would give us an advantage over Sébastien, and weexploited it to the full to take first place,” summed up Loeb. “This twenty-second leaddoesn’t give us any breathing space. We’ll have to continue to push if we want to be in aposition to win tomorrow. At the same time, we’ll have to nurse the car that’s been given afair hammering.”
Loeb, however, had no way of knowing that a bolt in the gear selection mechanism wouldstop him at the start of’Ibarrilla 2 (SS15). The crew of the no. 1 DS3 WRC started thestage five minutes late, which was transformed into a fifty-second road penalty. “Wemanaged to fix it using one of the bolts from the rear bumper. Bravo to Daniel as he wasthe one who came up with this great idea,” underlined the seven-time world champion.This put Ogier back on top, but he too ran into a few glitches: “I found out that Seb hadclocked in late at the finish of Ibarrilla. Even if I retook the lead it wasn’t good news asthat’s not how I want to win. In Duarte 2 we lost more time not because of the sweeping,but because we lost power as the ignition went on the blink. It wasn’t a big problem andwe managed to fix it.”
“While our DS3 WRCs are still in the lead of the race, we’ve run into a few teethingtroubles in this rally,” said Xavier Mestelan-Pinon, the Citroën Racing technical director.“Despite all the thousands of kilometers we covered in testing we knew that we could runinto this type of situation in the race. Hats off to our crews who’ve shown ingenuity andsang-froid!”
At the end-of-the-day service halt before two more runs through the Léon super special,Ogier was 11.3s in front of his team-mate: “There are still three stages and around sixthkilometers left tomorrow. We’re well placed even if our lead’s not very big, and we’ll reallygo for it to hang onto our first place.
Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson started the morning in thirteenth spot, and they setfour fastest times today as they fought their way back up to fifth overall.
FiguresSébastien Loeb / Daniel Elena Sébastien Ogier / Julien IngrassiaSS11: Ibarrilla 1 (29,90 km) 1str 1str 3rd +4’’7 2nd +2’’4SS12: Duarte 1 (23,27 km) 2nd +4’’4 1str 5th +19’’8 2nd +17’’8SS1 3: Derramadero 1 (23,28 km) 2nd +5’’6 1str 4th +6’’6 2nd +18’’8SS14: Leon Street (1,33 km) 1str 1str 2nd +0’’9 2nd +19’’7SS15: Ibarrilla 2 (29,90 km) 3rd +1’’3 2nd +24’’1 4th +7’’5 1strSS16: Duarte 2 (23,27 km) 2nd +3’’9 2nd +10’’4 5th +17’’6 1strSS17 : Derramadero 2 (23,28 km) 3rd +3’’0 2nd +11’’3 2nd +2’’1 1strSS18: Super Special 3 (2,21 km) 1st 2nd +11.0s 2nd 0.5s 1stSS19: Super Special 4 (2,21 km) 1st 2nd + 10.5s 2nd 0.3s 1st
Fasdtest times in the stagesDay 1 – SS1: Petter Solberg (Citroën DS3) – SS2 and 3: Sébastien Ogier (Citroën DS3) – SS4 and 5:Sébastien Loeb (Citroën DS3) – SS6 and 7: Ogier – SS8 and 9 : Loeb – SS10: Ogier.Day 2 – SS11: Loeb – SS12 and 13: P. Solberg – SS14: Loeb – SS15 and 16 : Solberg – SS17: Jari-MattiLatvala (Ford FiSSta) – SS18:Best performers : Loeb, 6 – Ogier and P. Solberg, 5 each – Latvala, 1.Leaders : SS1: Solberg – SS2 to 4: Ogier – SS5: Loeb – SS6 to 10: Ogier – SS11 to 14: Loeb – SS15 to19: Ogier.
Overall classification after the second day1 S. Ogier / J. Ingrassia Citroën DS3 WRC 3h 12m 52.6s2 S. Loeb / D. Elena Citroën DS3 WRC + 10.5s3 M. Hirvonen / J. Lehtinen Ford Fiesta RS WRC + 1m 30.4s4 J. Latvala / M. Anttila Ford Fiesta RS WRC + 2m 43.8s5 P. Solberg / C. Patterson Citroën DS3 WRC + 6m 51.8s6 M. Ostberg / J. Andersson Ford Fiesta RS WRC + 8m 09.8s7 H. Solberg / I. Minor Ford Fiesta RS WRC + 8m 41.6s8 N. Al Attiyah / G. Bernacchini Ford Fiesta S2000 + 10m 53.9s9 M. Prokop / J. Tomanek Ford Fiesta S2000 + 11m 32.5s10 J. Hänninen / M. Markkula Ford Fiesta S2000 + 12m 02.6s
