Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Round 5 of this year's World Rally Championship season saw the class of 2016 head to the hills around Porto for the Vodafone Rally de Portugal. Based in the north of the country for only the second time in recent years, Finland's Jari-Matti Latvala headed into the weekend as the defending winner.
But it was Northern Ireland's Kris Meeke that took the rally by the scruff of its neck, taking the lead early on Friday morning and not looking back. Meeke took his first win of the year after impressive runs in Monte-Carlo and Sweden earlier, making the most of his superior starting position to take WRC career win number 2. The Briton's triumph meant this is the first time in his Volkswagen career that Sebastien Ogier has gone three rallies without a win, and the first time VW have gone more than one rally without finishing on top of the podium. However, the German marque did own the remainder of the Portuguese podium, but it wasn't World Champion Ogier that finished as Meeke's closest challenger. Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen put in an inspired performance on Saturday to charge his way into third position from seventh, throwing caution to the wind. He continued his fine form into the last few tests on Sunday, defeating his illustrious team mate by a handful of seconds. Ogier took third, an uncharacteristically low position for the French ace. Cleaning the roads didn't turn out to be too much of a disadvantage on Friday's earlier stages, but from then on in he struggled for grip in his battle with Kris Meeke, especially as Meeke started well down the order and not just a few cars behind. A slow puncture ultimately allowed Mikkelsen to beat him and become his closest challenger in the title race, although Ogier still remains in complete control having not finished off the podium all year. Dani Sordo put in another strong performance in Portugal with fourth place, in what is becoming one of the Spaniard's most impressive seasons in the WRC. He sat third after Friday's action, but ultimately couldn't hold off the fast charging Mikkelsen on Saturday and settled for a strong haul of points. Fifth position was a career best for M-Sport driver Eric Camilli, who backed up his points scoring finish in Argentina with a mature and impressive run in South West Europe. He did benefit from other's misfortune, but you have to be there to take the position and he set some very impressive and quick times on Saturday. He is starting to show some of the potential Malcolm Wilson clearly saw in him. Jari-Matti Latvala had another disappointing rally, as his luckless season continues. He was off the pace to begin with, but was finding his flow, only for a rut in the road to break his power steering and leave him playing catch-up for the rest of the event. All guns blazing for the Finn in Sardinia. Ostberg too continued to struggle in Portugal. Mads was off the pace in Argentina, and in Portugal he found himself with front wheel drive only in his Fiesta on Saturday afternoon, meaning seventh was all he could manage. That same hole that caught Latvala out was to be the downfall for Argentina winner Hayden Paddon and Estonian Ott Tanak. Paddon arrived first, hitting the compression and bouncing off into the undergrowth. But worse was to follow after the rear exhaust ignited the scenery, resulting in a rather burnt out Hyundai i20. Tanak made the same mistake, but his mission after crashing was to frantically save his Fiesta from burning like Paddon's i20, which he managed to do. Thierry Neuville had another rally to forget too. He sat in fifth after Friday and into Saturday, but an miscalculation led to him running out of fuel, rather embarrassingly for him and the Hyundai team. The next round of the WRC is on the Italian island of Sardinia from 10-12 June. It's not one to miss, as Latvala and Ogier amongst others will be desperate for a victory.
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January 2018
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