Rally New Zealand Day One

Rally New Zealand Day One

2012 FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP 
BROTHER RALLY NEW ZEALAND
(21-24 JUNE 2012)

22.06.2012

The Citroën Total World Rally Team crews have dominated the opening day of Brother Rally New Zealand, Sébastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen winning all but one of the stages. Loeb snatched the lead from Hirvonen in the final stage, but the battling team-mates are split by just four seconds this evening. Evgeny Novikov is in a surprise third, the Russian moving into the position when Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala went off the road in the penultimate stage.
 
Today’s 209.60 competitive kilometre route took in two identical loops of four stages south-west of Auckland with just one mid-day remote service in Raglan. After yesterday’s qualifying stage, different strategies regarding road positions saw Hirvonen, Petter Solberg and Loeb running at the front of the field and Latvala electing to start last of the leading drivers, hoping to capitalise on better conditions. This, and differing tyre choices this morning, proved key, with Latvala on soft compound tyres claiming the initial advantage. However, damper conditions in the following stages favoured the Citroën drivers running at the front - also with soft tyres - and Hirvonen powered into the lead after stage two. He and Loeb won all the remaining stages, with Loeb claiming the overnight advantage in the final stage. Solberg was also poised to capitalise on his start position, however the choice of hard tyres proved disastrous for the Norwegian who lost nearly 90 seconds in the opening loop. He has however climbed the leaderboard from seventh to fourth overnight.
 
After initially leading, Latvala was running in third position when he went off the road and got stuck in a fence in stage seven. He lost nearly four and a half minutes and overnights in ninth. As a consequence, Evgeny Novikov holds the final provisional podium position, but has a chasing Solberg on his heels just 8.3 seconds behind. Ott Tänak has had a trouble-free run to fifth and Thierry Neuville has recovered from a spin to hold sixth in his first Rally New Zealand outing. Dani Sordo suffered this morning, the Spaniard also on hard tyres and struggling with gear selection problems. Armindo Araújo and Latvala are now close in eighth and ninth respectively, with Ken Block rounding off the top ten.
 
Rally New Zealand – Provisional Results after Day 1