Hello my dear friends! Motorsport News Time. After the summer break, the World Rally Championship returns to us, as well as the DTM series races. And at the end of the coming week, Formula 1 will come out of a short vacation. But first things first.
Last weekend, the WRC went on an asphalt track in Germany. Since at this stage a minimum of gravel and a maximum of asphalt, everything is decided by precise driving and speed. And the best here from the first day was Ott Tanak and his Toyota Yaris. This weekend the Estonian approached the championship leader with a good margin from the closest pursuers. This season he won four victories and clearly hoped to win a fifth. On the narrow vineyard roads near the Moselle, the battle for first place broke out from the first day. The competition was made by Tanak Thierry Neville, who during the day did not lag behind Toyota by more than three seconds. The closest rival, world champion Sebastian Ogier kept at a distance of 22 seconds and had problems with the car. For the fourth place there was a struggle between Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo, until the latter had a transmission jammed and as a result, having lost a minute, the Spaniard rolled back to ninth place. Fifth place was won by Jari-Mati Latvala, despite the departure from the track to the field.
On Saturday, the struggle for first place continued, Ott Tanak increased the lead from Thierry Neville to 5 seconds, but then the Belgian was not lucky, and he received a puncture, which cost him a minute and a half. He finished Saturday with the fifth. Meanwhile, Kris Meeke broke into second place by 32.4 seconds ahead of the leader, his rival was Jari-Mati Latvala, who was not so far from the Briton, they were separated by 9 seconds. Dani Sordo was able to fix the problem with the gearbox and took fourth place 25 seconds faster than Thierry Neville. Sebastian Ogier was still struggling with the car. The understeer coupled with the puncture cost the Frenchman third place and 90 extra seconds. In the end, he finished Saturday day eighth.
Sunday almost ended in failure for Ott Tanak, who before the final stage began to experience problems with the brakes, however, the Estonian had enough separation from his rivals to accurately pass the remaining sections and come to the finish line first. Estonian teammates Kris Meeke and Jari-Mati Latvala maintained their Saturday positions and brought maximum points to the Toyota team, which for the first time since 1993 fully occupied the entire podium. According to the results of the race, the Estonian secured his leadership to 33 points, and Toyota in the constructors' cup broke into first place with an advantage of 8 points over the Hyundai team. Dani Sordo finished fourth, however, having received a fine, he gave his position to his teammate, Thierry Neville, allowing the Belgian to score more points in the championship. The same maneuver was also held in Citroen, Esapekka Lappi was the sixth, but got out of the fight giving Sebastian Ogier a chance to rise from eighth to seventh. This maneuver helped Andreas Mikkelsen, who eventually became the sixth.
The next stage will be held in Turkey on September 12-15.
Photos taken from the official WRC www.wrc.com
