No real surprise in Spain
with VW at the top of the leaderboard at the end of Rally Catalunya, or perhaps
there was. It wasn't the Ogier machine or even the Latvala car though, Andreas
Mikkelsen scored his first WRC victory. Latvala punctured a tyre on SS21 and Sebastian
Ogier crashed out on the final stage, SS22.
As for the DS3 twins, there was just no catching
Dani Sordo in the Hyundai but when Kris Meeke spun on SS19 he lost fourth place
to team mate Mads Østberg! However, the Power Stage saw Kris score an extra
point for the Drivers’ championship by grabbing third fastest time.
At the finish, Kris
said: "It was a fairly strange weekend. With
no experience on the gravel stages, I wasn’t really on the pace on Friday and
we lost time on some of our rivals. On tarmac, with different tyres to last
year, I didn’t have a very good feeling in the car. The result is still
positive for the team. It‘s now up to us to finish the season on a high at the
final rally in Wales.”
Mads Østberg: “We made a very good start on Friday. We were one
of the quickest crews on gravel, despite our road position. Unfortunately a
puncture on the longest stage meant we lost a lot of time. I think we were also
very competitive on tarmac.”
Final Leaderboard:
1. Andreas Mikkelsen
/ Ola Floene (Volkswagen Polo R WRC) 3:21:04.82. Jari-Matti Latvala / Miikka Anttila (Volkswagen Polo R WRC) +3.1
3. Dani Sordo / Marc Marti (Hyundai i20 WRC) +21.2
4. Mads Østberg / Jonas Andersson (DS 3 WRC) +1:06.3
5. Kris Meeke / Paul Nagle (DS 3 WRC) +1:08.2
6. Hayden Paddon / John Kennard (Hyundai i20 WRC) +1:23.3
7. Martin Prokop / Jan Tomanek (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) +4:14.2
8. Thierry Neuville / Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 WRC) +8:01.9
9. Pontus Tidemand / Emil Axelsson (Skoda Fabia R5) +8:56.8
10. Jan Kopecky / Pavel Dresler (Skoda Fabia R5) +9:07.5
