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	Sébastien Ogier Benjamin Veillas	1:06'07.9
2	Kalle Rovanperä Jonne Halttunen	1:06'12.7	4.8	4.8
3	Thierry Neuville Martijn Wydaeghe	1:06'20.4	12.5	7.7
4	Ott Tanak Martin Jarveoja	1:06'27.9	20.0	7.5
5	Dani Sordo Candido Carrera	1:06'58.8	50.9	30.9
6	Elfyn Evans Scott Martin	1:07'09.1	1'01.2	10.3
7	Craig Breen Paul Nagle	1:07'11.6	1'03.7	2.5
8	Takamoto Katsuta Aaron Johnston	1:07'36.5	1'28.6	24.9
9	Adrien Fourmaux Alexandre Coria	1:07'39.2	1'31.3	2.7
10	Gus Greensmith Jonas Andersson	1:07'46.7	1'38.8	7.5
11	Pierre-Louis Loubet Vincent Landais	1:07'56.6	1'48.7	9.9
12	Teemu Suninen Mikko Markkula	1:10'04.1	3'56.2	2'07.5
13	Nikolay Gryazin Konstantin Aleksandrov	1:10'16.8	4'08.9	12.7
14	Yohan Rossel Arnaud Dunand	1:10'20.8	4'12.9	4.0
15	Jari Huttunen Mikko Lukka	1:10'42.8	4'34.9	22.0
16	Stéphane Sarrazin Jacques-Julien Renucci	1:10'49.2	4'41.3	6.4
17	Emil Lindholm Reeta Hämäläinen	1:11'04.6	4'56.7	15.4
18	Kajetan Kajetanowicz Maciek Szczepaniak	1:11'15.6	5'07.7	11.0
19	Fabrizio Zaldivar Marcelo Der Ohannesian	1:11'41.0	5'33.1	25.4
20	Ricardo Romagnoli Louis Louka	1:11'43.2	5'35.3	2.2
21	Mikołaj Marczyk 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	Josh McErlean James Fulton	1:12'04.5	5'56.6	12.0
24	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	Georg Linnamae 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 Carlos del Barrio	1:13'36.5	7'28.6	4.6
29	Jourdan Serderidis Frédéric Miclotte	1:13'42.2	7'34.3	5.7
30	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 Mikael Korhonen	1:14'27.4	8'19.5	35.1
33	Pepe Lopez Borja Rozada	1:14'37.8	8'29.9	10.4
34	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	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	Jean-Michel Raoux Laurent Magat	1:16'26.6	10'18.7	11.2
41	Diego Jr. 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	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	Eamonn Boland 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	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	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	Henk Vossen Radboud van	1:57'04.2	50'56.3	28'13.4
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