Jari-Matti Latvala may have maintained his lead during today’s second full day of competition in Vodafone Rally de Portugal, but the threat is now coming from team-mate Sébastien Ogier who has powered up the leaderboard from sixth to second. The Volkswagen drivers go into the final stages on Sunday split by a mere 9.5 seconds. Victory and indeed the top four positions are however far from settled with Kris Meeke third, 10.5 seconds adrift of Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen just 1.1 seconds further behind in fourth. With 21.2 seconds covering the top four drivers, a thrilling battle to the finish line is guaranteed.

Today’s route again covered two identical loops of three stages but the nature and condition of the roads posed yet another challenge for the 88 crews who restarted this morning. Latvala began the day with an 11.1 second advantage over Meeke, but an overshoot in the first stage handed the stage victory to Mikkelsen, who also moved ahead of Meeke in the process. However, two fastest times from Meeke in the following stages enabled the Ulsterman to climb back to second and halve the gap to Latvala by the mid-day service, his challenge aided when Latvala hit a rock and backed off in the third stage. Different tyre strategies saw Ogier claim a clean sweep of stage victories this afternoon and the Frenchman is now right back in contention. While Meeke has slipped to third, the Citroën driver is not prepared to risk his podium position with a fight for overall honours, but will nevertheless have to protect his position from Mikkelsen who is a mere 1.1 seconds behind. The Norwegian has enjoyed another great day in the upgraded Polo R WRC, his only mistake a spin over the flying finish on the final stage.

Behind the four-way podium fight, Ott Tanak is demonstrating the potential of the all-new Fiesta RS WRC, the Estonian fifth this evening. Team-mate Elfyn Evans - who retired yesterday - has once again had a disappointing day in the sister car and the Welshman was parked up in the first stage after hitting a rock and damaging the suspension. A brief under-bonnet fire added to his woes. Dani Sordo seems to have been unable to get into the rhythm today and the Spaniard has dropped to sixth, his fight now with Hyundai team-mate Hayden Paddon in seventh and eighth-placed Mads Østberg. Paddon had to nurse his i20 WRC back to service this evening with no gearbox oil, and Østberg had a problem with the rear diff this morning and had a broken sensor that deprived him of turbo boost over this afternoon’s three stages. Robert Kubica continues to have a good run and is ninth and Martin Prokop is 10th, the Czech driver contending with understeer and then an overshoot and spin. Aside from Evans, the other leading retirements of the day were Thierry Neuville, who rolled his Hyundai in the first stage, and Lorenzo Bertelli who crashed his Fiesta.

Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah continues to lead the closely-fought FIA WRC 2 Championship category and Quentin Gilbert heads the FIA Junior and FIA WRC 3 Championships for two-wheel drive cars.

Vodafone Rally de Portugal – Unofficial Results after Section 5