Date: Saturday, March 18th
Day: 3 Flash N°: 11
Special stage: Ibarrilla 1 Distance:14.82 km
Weather: Warm and sunny, 16°C
Road conditions: Dry and sunny
OGIER LEADS AFTER LAPPI CRASHES OUT
Day two’s action was centred around the area to the north and east of León in the Sierra de Lobos mountains and the 14.82km of Ibarrilla was first on the agenda. Jourdain Serderidis had the unenviable task of ‘stage cleaning’ services for his Rally1 rivals, with Pierre Louis Loubet and Takamoto Katsuta running second and third on the road.
Ott Tänak laid down the gauntlet for his rivals with a time of 8min 47.2sec, although the Estonian was still not happy with the Puma, despite beating both Kalle Rovanperä and Dani Sordo.
Evans edged 1.9 seconds further clear of Neuville in the battle for third place but Ogier set the fastest time and inherited the lead when Lappi got out of phase in the stage, slammed sideways into a banking and spun on the track with the damaged car coming to rest against a telegraph pole with smoke seeping from under the bonnet. The stage was red flagged and the uninjured crew ran over to Gus Greensmith’s slowing Škoda to try and save their car with the use of the Briton’s fire extinguisher.
Car 8. TÄNAK/JÄRVEOJA
“It’s quite low grip. I can’t drive the faster. It is not working for me. It is not working like it normally should.”
Car 69. ROVANPERÄ/HALTTUNEN
“I went a bit wide, northing dramatic there. I tried a clean run. It was not so easy. We had to have one
hard on the car as well.”
Car 11. NEUVILLE/WYDAEGHE
“For sure, the stage was okay. The grip at the end was quite low. I was a bit careful in there. We had
an okay stage.”
Car 33. EVANS/MARTIN
“The target is to concentrate on the job in hand go stage-by-stage and do the best we can.”
Car 17. OGIER/LANDAIS
After hearing about Lappi’s crash. “That is a shame. I enjoyed the fight. Yetserday he had amazing
speed and that is really a shame. It was a good stage for us, clean and a very nice drive.”
Car 4. LAPPI/FERM
Crashed out of the lead of the rally and the accident forced the stage to be red-flagged.
Car 18. KATSUTA/JOHNSTON
“It’s quite slippery. We are expecting this kind of feelng. The beginning was okay but the end was very
slippery.
Car 7. LOUBET/GILSOUL
“To come back is important to take maximum experience today. We will try to do our best.”
Car 6. SORDO/CARRERA
“It was very slippery and it was difficult to feel the braking points.”
Car 9. SERDERIDIS/MICLOTTE
“So slippery, we are cleaning extremely much. We have one stage, so it is a better day!”
