Rally - Nearly there

On his first run over the Col de Turini this afternoon, Citroen’s Kris Meeke was beaming “I really enjoyed it in there,” he said. “This is just awesome. As young boy I grew up dreaming of days like this.”

Mikko Hirvonen has managed to slip past his young team mate to move into sixth place with two stages to go. Evans couldn’t challenge because of a lack of confidence,saying: “I struggled to carry any speed. It’s no surprise that Mikko has come past.”

And so to the final two stages, including a final 23.4 km run over the infamous Col Turini, at 1,607 metres it’s the highest stage in the rally – in the dark, and it’s snowing, again.

Leaderboard after 13 (of 15) stages:
1, S. Ogier / J. Ingrassia, 3:44:32.7, 0.0,
2, B. Bouffier / X. Panseri, 3:45:33.9, +1:01.2,
3, K. Meeke / P. Nagle, 3:46:22.3, +1:49.6,
4, M. Østberg / J. Andersson, 3:48:05.7, +3:33.0,
5, J. Latvala / M. Anttila, 3:50:41.2, +6:08.5,
6, M. Hirvonen / J. Lehtinen, 3:52:03.4, +7:30.7,
7, E. Evans / D. Barritt, 3:52:05.4, +7:32.7,
8, A. Mikkelsen / M. Markkula, 3:55:55.5, +11:22.8,
9, J. Melichárek / E. Melichárek, 4:03:03.1, +18:30.4,
10, M. Gamba / N. Arena (S 2000), 4:07:07.4, +22:34.7,

Yurii Protasov still leads WRC2 category but Lorenzo Bertelli has overtaken Robert Barrable to re-take second place. The Irishman had lost time with a windscreen that wouldn’t demist properly. “I couldn’t see the corners or the lines after one kilometre. It was horrible,” he said.

Eamon Boland is one place behind Barrable in 15th place overall.