Rally de Portugal Day Two

Rally de Portugal Day Two

2012 FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
RALLY DE PORTUGAL
(29 MARCH - 01 APRIL 2012)

30.03.2012

The second day of Rally de Portugal has been dramatic and treacherous, resulting in half of the day’s stages being cancelled for safety reasons due to extreme wet weather. So, at the end of seven stages, Citroën driver Mikko Hirvonen heads the leaderboard with Evgeny Novikov and Mads Østberg holding second and third respectively.
 
Today’s leg was scheduled to take in two loops of three stages totalling 132.68 competitive kilometres. However, storms overnight made conditions treacherous this morning and a number of leading crews ended up off the road and in retirement. Overnight leader Jari-Matti Latvala slid off the road; the Finn hit a rock, broke part of the suspension and the resultant damage put the car into a spin and down a bank. Ott Tänak, fourth last night, similarly went off, as did fifth-placed Thierry Neuville.
 
In the following stage, Petter Solberg – who inherited the lead from Latvala – retired stuck in a ditch, both drivers throwing away Ford’s hopes of a maximum points haul following Sébastien Loeb’s retirement yesterday.
 
Hirvonen therefore inherited the lead and has a 36.3 second advantage over Novikov, a fine overnight result for the Russian. Østberg has suffered his own problems, but the Norwegian is just 5.5 seconds further adrift in third. With the tricky conditions experienced this morning, the organisers of the event elected to cancel the repeat running of the stages this afternoon, such were the continuing adverse weather conditions.
 
Rally de Portugal – Results after Day 2