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Tom Howard

WRC Spain: Ogier extends lead, Greensmith crash cancels Stage 11

Ogier seemed to have the measure of new world champion Rovanpera but did have to stave off a challenge from the third-placed Hyundai of Thierry Neuville.

However, a heavy crash for M-Sport’s Greensmith cancelled the final stage of the loop, leaving Ogier to return to service early with a 9.7s lead over Rovanpera, while Neuville trailed the Frenchman by 14.2s.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak remained in contention in fourth, 27.2s adrift, while Dani Sordo (1m06.2), Elfyn Evans (1m09.2s), Craig Breen (1m15.4s), Takamoto Katsuta (1m39.6s), Adrien Fourmaux (1m46.1s) and Pierre-Louis Loubet (2m20.9s) completed the top 10.

Dry asphalt roads greeted crews for the start of the Saturday’s morning loop, and it was Neuville that seemingly made the most of the conditions.

The Belgian lit up the timing screens in Stage 9 (13.93km) despite admitting that he was struggling with understeer and a lack of grip.

Neuville emerged 0.9s faster than rally leader Ogier, who claimed he wasn’t pushing to the “absolute maximum”.

"The battle is not over, that's for sure,” said Neuville, who won last year’s visit to Spain. “I feel like I'm pushing but I don't feel comfortable.

“Last year I felt much more sure about everything and here it's a bit on and off. Difficult to feel the grip and I had a lot of understeer, so we're going to work on that.”

Rovanpera could only clock the third-fastest time, some 1.5s adrift of the pace. The new world champion was left perplexed as to where his rivals found time.

"It's not the best thing if they are faster! I felt it was a good stage for me - I tried to push quite hard and I don't know where I left any more time,” said Rovanpera.

After the hybrid issues that hampered his Friday, Tanak declared that his car was working correctly, but the Estonian dropped 2.1s.

Evans was able to claw back some time to Sordo in the battle for fifth overall although the Welshman was left frustrated by his efforts that netted the sixth-fastest stage time. The top 11 Rally1 competitors were split by 6.6s through the stage.

Ogier issued an immediate response to Neuville’s push by winning the next test (Stage 10). The Frenchman produced a blistering run through the 20.19km run to beat Neuville by 2.6s, and take 4.3s out of his nearest rival Rovanpera.

Rovanpera’s run wasn’t straight forward after a “scary moment” at the final corner that required some evasive action to avoid an obstacle.

“For sure, the guys are a bit faster but I tried to push," said Rovanpera.

“I am driving quite clean and I'm still in a comfortable place. We had a scary moment in the last corner - there was a scary block or something in the road and I was sure it was going to break our car, but luckily it was quite soft.”

Kalle Rovanpera, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images)

Teammate Evans showed signs that he’d found more pace from his Yaris after setting the fourth-fastest time, that took time out of both Tanak and Sordo.

The battle at the front was neutralised when the crews reached Stage 11, the last of the loop and the longest of the rally.

The majority of the Rally1 field were forced to navigate through stage at road speed after officials threw the red flag following a crash for Greensmith.

The M-Sport driver, sitting in 10th position, carried too much speed into a right hander, resulting in heavy impact with the armco barriers. Greensmith’s Ford Puma was spun around and suffered heavy damage to the car’s left hand side, that included the removal of its left-rear wheel.

Greensmith and co-driver Jonas Andersson emerged from the wreckage unscathed but with the car blocking the road, the stage was cancelled.

Crews will have the opportunity to pass through the test as part of a repeat of the loop this afternoon.

Full stage results:

Cla Driver/Codriver Total Time Gap Interval
1 France Sébastien Ogier
France Benjamin Veillas
1:06'07.9    
2 Finland Kalle Rovanperä
Finland Jonne Halttunen
1:06'12.7 4.8 4.8
3 Belgium Thierry Neuville
Belgium Martijn Wydaeghe
1:06'20.4 12.5 7.7
4 Estonia Ott Tanak
Estonia Martin Jarveoja
1:06'27.9 20.0 7.5
5 Spain Dani Sordo
Candido Carrera
1:06'58.8 50.9 30.9
6 United Kingdom Elfyn Evans
United Kingdom Scott Martin
1:07'09.1 1'01.2 10.3
7 Ireland Craig Breen
Ireland Paul Nagle
1:07'11.6 1'03.7 2.5
8 Japan Takamoto Katsuta
Ireland Aaron Johnston
1:07'36.5 1'28.6 24.9
9 France Adrien Fourmaux
France Alexandre Coria
1:07'39.2 1'31.3 2.7
10 United Kingdom Gus Greensmith
Sweden Jonas Andersson
1:07'46.7 1'38.8 7.5
11 France Pierre-Louis Loubet
France Vincent Landais
1:07'56.6 1'48.7 9.9
12 Finland Teemu Suninen
Finland Mikko Markkula
1:10'04.1 3'56.2 2'07.5
13 Russian Federation Nikolay Gryazin
Russian Federation Konstantin Aleksandrov
1:10'16.8 4'08.9 12.7
14 France Yohan Rossel
Arnaud Dunand
1:10'20.8 4'12.9 4.0
15 Finland Jari Huttunen
Finland Mikko Lukka
1:10'42.8 4'34.9 22.0
16 France Stéphane Sarrazin
Jacques-Julien Renucci
1:10'49.2 4'41.3 6.4
17 Finland Emil Lindholm
Reeta Hämäläinen
1:11'04.6 4'56.7 15.4
18 Poland Kajetan Kajetanowicz
Poland Maciek Szczepaniak
1:11'15.6 5'07.7 11.0
19 Fabrizio Zaldivar
Argentina Marcelo Der Ohannesian
1:11'41.0 5'33.1 25.4
20 Luxembourg Ricardo Romagnoli
Belgium Louis Louka
1:11'43.2 5'35.3 2.2
21 Mikołaj Marczyk
Poland Szymon Gospodarczyk
1:11'50.4 5'42.5 7.2
22 Sami Pajari
Enni Mälkönen
1:11'52.5 5'44.6 2.1
23 Ireland Josh McErlean
Ireland James Fulton
1:12'04.5 5'56.6 12.0
24 Spain Jan Solans
Rodrigo Sanjuan
1:12'21.1 6'13.2 16.6
25 Philip Allen
Dale Bowen
1:13'04.1 6'56.2 43.0
26 Estonia Georg Linnamae
United Kingdom James Morgan
1:13'05.0 6'57.1 0.9
27 Mikko Heikkilä
Samu Vaaleri
1:13'31.9 7'24.0 26.9
28 Bruno Bulacia
Spain Carlos del Barrio
1:13'36.5 7'28.6 4.6
29 Greece Jourdan Serderidis
Frédéric Miclotte
1:13'42.2 7'34.3 5.7
30 Germany Armin Kremer
Ella Kremer
1:13'43.7 7'35.8 1.5
31 Mauro Miele
Luca Beltrame
1:13'52.3 7'44.4 8.6
32 Lauri Joona
Finland Mikael Korhonen
1:14'27.4 8'19.5 35.1
33 Spain Pepe Lopez
Borja Rozada
1:14'37.8 8'29.9 10.4
34 Czech Republic Jan Černý
Petr Černohorský
1:14'40.9 8'33.0 3.1
35 William Creighton
Liam Regan
1:14'51.2 8'43.3 10.3
36 Johannes Keferbock
Ilka Minor
1:14'59.6 8'51.7 8.4
37 France Emmanuel Guigou
Jules Escartefigue
1:15'03.8 8'55.9 4.2
38 Eduard Pons
Dani Muntadas
1:15'35.8 9'27.9 32.0
39 Rakan Al-Rashed
Hugo Magalhaes
1:16'15.4 10'07.5 39.6
40 France Jean-Michel Raoux
France Laurent Magat
1:16'26.6 10'18.7 11.2
41 Diego Jr.
Spain Rogelio Penate
1:16'32.1 10'24.2 5.5
42 Victor Cartier
Marine Maye
1:16'54.5 10'46.6 22.4
43 Daniel Chwist
Kamil Heller
1:16'58.9 10'51.0 4.4
44 Yanis Desangles
Nicolas Theron
1:17'44.4 11'36.5 45.5
45 France Philippe Baffoun
Charlyne Quartini
1:17'57.3 11'49.4 12.9
46 Gabriele Cogni
Giacomo Ciucci
1:18'44.2 12'36.3 46.9
47 Ireland Eamonn Boland
Ireland Michael Joseph Morrissey
1:19'40.2 13'32.3 56.0
48 Fabrizio Arengi
Massimiliano Bosi
1:21'06.6 14'58.7 1'26.4
49 Zoltán László
Tamás Kürti
1:21'55.2 15'47.3 48.6
50 Alejandro Zavaleta
Diego Sanjuan
1:22'08.2 16'00.3 13.0
51 Miguel Díaz-Aboitiz
Jordi Hereu
1:22'41.6 16'33.7 33.4
52 Mariano Parés
Eduard Ferrán
1:22'42.1 16'34.2 0.5
53 Zósimo Hernández
José Ignacio
1:22'47.0 16'39.1 4.9
54 Italy Paolo Strabello
Davide Bianchi
1:23'09.0 17'01.1 22.0
55 Miquel Labarias
Lorena Romero
1:23'16.0 17'08.1 7.0
56 Roberto Gobbin
Fabio Grimaldi
1:23'35.1 17'27.2 19.1
57 France Armando Pereira
Jules Russier
1:28'27.4 22'19.5 4'52.3
58 Paolo Raviglione
Alessandro Rappoldi
1:28'50.8 22'42.9 23.4
59 Netherlands Henk Vossen
Radboud van
1:57'04.2 50'56.3 28'13.4
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