The fifth round of the FIA World Rally Championship got underway last night under the shadow of the medieval castle at Guimarães before crews headed to the rallycross circuit at Lousada for a short stage en route back to Matosinhos and the overnight halt. This morning, however, the route took the crews north towards the Spanish border for the opening loop of three stages and 64.17 competitive kilometres. After winning last night’s stage, Ogier had to take a back seat to Meeke in the opening test, the DS3 WRC driver winning the first two stages to put his mark on Portugal’s round of the series. Both ran without problems, although Ogier struggled with understeer in the first stage. Sordo started the morning cautiously, preserving tyres for the whole loop, and then lost some time avoiding rocks in the second test but he is hot on Ogier’s heels, just 3.1 seconds adrift of the World Champion.

Ott Tanak has catapulted himself up to fourth, having finished last night’s stage in eighth overall. The Estonian is benefitting from new specification DMACK tyres on this event and is also in the fight for honours, he and Jari-Matti Latvala arriving at the mid-day service both 19.9 seconds adrift of the lead. The Finn was way too cautious this morning and couldn’t get a good feeling with the car, but bounced back in the final stage of the loop to move up from seventh with a fastest time.

Hayden Paddon, winner of the previous round in Argentina, is sixth, but has struggled for grip and has been driving round a problem with the differential which has been unsettling the balance of the car. Andreas Mikkelsen is just 1.3 seconds adrift of the Kiwi driver and Thierry Neuville is eighth, albeit further behind. The Belgian got off to a slow start but is back on track with his confidence. Stephane Lefebvre is ninth and Mads Østberg rounds off the top 10, the Norwegian suffering with an on-going downshift problem on his Fiesta.

In the FIA WRC 2 Championship, Skoda Fabia driver Pontus Tidemand has a comfortable 35.2 second lead over Nicolas Fuchs, and Simone Tempestini heads the Junior WRC Championship contenders.