Rally - Wales qualifying

Ogier sets the pace in Wales

Ahead of this evening’s start (18.30 Hrs) of Rally Wales GB, Sebastien Ogier has thrown down the gauntlet by setting the fastest time at the Qualifying Stage this morning. That gives him first call on start number this evening. Mind you the VW Polo driver’s time was only seven hundredths of a second quicker than Fiesta driver Thierry Neuville. 

It was wild, windy and wet in Wales earlier today as the teams gathered to sort out the starting order, but there was a shock for Citroen’s Dani Sordo. He has been handed a 5 minute time penalty ahead of to-night’s rally start after it was discovered that his DS3 world rally car was built on the Citroen Total Abu Dhabi team's ninth chassis of the season - when regulations limit the number to eight!

Sordo took the news well: “There was some confusion with the chassis numbers for the rally. It’s a small mistake, it’s cost us five minutes, but this is life, no? Everybody is human, and mistakes happen. Sometimes I make a mistake and other times the engineers or the people from the team do.  I’m very disappointed but okay, we have nothing to gain now in the manufacturers’ and the drivers’ championships. All we can do is try to do the rally without thinking about it and try to have a good experience in the stages. The time at the end will be five minutes more - but that’s how it is.”  

Fastest Qualifiers:

1. Sebastien Ogier   1min 52.708sec
2. Thierry Neuville   + 0.070
3. Evgeny Novikov   + 1.889
4. Jari-Matti Latvala   + 2.168
5. Mads Ostberg   + 2.759
6. Mikko Hirvonen   + 2.979
7. Robert Kubica   + 3.381
8. Dani Sordo         + 3.483
9. Andreas Mikkelsen   + 3.732
10. Martin Prokop   + 6.183
11. Michal Solowow    + 12.115