Sebastien Ogier leads Volkswagen to top three spots
Defending champions stormed to lead in the last stage of Rally Australia
By : c. santhosh kumar
Update: 2014-09-13 00:44 GMT
Coffs Harbour (Australia): He saved his best for the last. After languishing at mid table for themost part of the opening day, defending world champion Sebastien Ogier stormed to lead in the last stage of the Rally Australia here on Friday. It also turned out to be a productive day for Volkswagen withthe Frenchman heading the German manufacturers 1-2-3 with two moredays of competition left.
Ogier inched past his teammate Jari-Matti Latvala by just four-tenthof a second on the day’s eighth and final test, a spectator-friendly super special stage (1.5km) held under lights at a rugby stadium.Volkswagen’s third driver Andreas Mikkelsen was further 3.1s behindLatvala. With mere five points needed to secure the manufacturers’ title, Volkswagen couldn’t have asked for a better start. However, only 7.9 seconds separate the top five cars after eight stages and almost 96kms of the competition around the picturesque coastal city.
Irishman Kris Meeke, who dominated in his Citroen through stages three to six, and three-time Australia winner Mikko Hirvonen of M-Sport Ford are fourth and fifth.Ogier seemed to have put behind him the memory of crashing out of Rally Germany last month as he got off to a perfect start despite having a handicap of being the first car on course. But as conditions dried he bore the brunt of sweeping slippery surface gravel and fell back to fourth before clawing his way back in the final stage. Ogier, however, will have an advantage when the rally resumes on Saturday.
Ogier is desperate to go all the way in Australia in a bid to stretch his 44-point championship lead over teammate Latvala. “Based on our starting position I actually thought that we would be behind today. But we were able to make the best of the situation,” Ogier said.
“Clearly a stone made a small hole somewhere. We couldn’t find it. But we solved the problem by refilling the water regularly,” he said.Teammate Latvala also had to make use of his basic knowledge of mechanics. Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila used theon-board tool kit to vent the braking system while transporting to stage 2. “In the morning the brakes didn t work as hard as they usually do. But the problem wasn’t just slowing down. In a rally car you need the brakes to position the car before,” he said.