Day 1 – Latvala continues his progress… Loeb follows

At the end of the first day of the Rally Mexico, Jari-Matti Latvala leads ahead of Loeb and Atkinson. For the first time in a long while, the provisional podium consists of three different brands.

The young Finnish driver, the youngest winner of a WRC rally thanks to his victory in Sweden a few weeks ago, is on the verge of repeating his feat. He is giving the four-time French world champion a tough challenge, who struggled to get into the swing of things but will have the advantage tomorrow of starting behind Latvala and thus won’t have to clear the track.

Sébastien Loeb: « We had a bit of trouble finding the right rhythm in the first stage. On these stages where the surface hasn’t been completely cleaned by the competitors who started ahead of us, the grip was very tricky with these hard compound tires. We slightly changed our settings before the start of SS2 and it went better. The gaps are still small. Nothing is decided yet. »

The Frenchman’s teammate in the Citroën C4 had to retire after the first special stage. Dani Sordo explains: “We were running at a good pace. The initial split times were good. However, I wasn’t taking all the risks. After a left-hand corner that we approached in the tracks of competitors who had gone before us, the car spun. In this corner, there might have been a stone on the inside? I don’t know. We didn’t feel an impact. With the left front arm broken, we couldn’t continue. It’s a big disappointment. We will restart in the supeRally tomorrow to try to earn a point for Citroën.”

After the first 8 stages, including two super specials, Latvala has a 9-second lead over Loeb and 22 over Atkinson (Subaru). The Australian is familiar with the Mexican surface and is ahead of his teammate, Petter Solberg, who experienced an issue during the first stage. The Norwegian indeed hit a dog, losing significant time. He is already more than a minute behind the leader.

Mikko Hirvonen, in the second BP Ford, is only 5th after losing 40 seconds due to a flat tire in stage no. 4. He was then ahead of Peter Solberg in 4th position.

Henning Solberg is in 6th place. On Stobart, the Norwegian kept up with the pace set by the other drivers but cannot compete at the front. He hit many rocks on the stages but didn’t get a puncture, just like Atkinson, who moved to 6th on a rock without any blowout…

Matthew Wilson is currently in 7th place, ahead of the Spanish Villagra on Munch’s Ford, who would thus score his first points due to the absence of official competitors.

Gigi Galli on the second Stobart has retired. The Italian broke the front-left suspension of his Ford Focus WRC 2007 and could not continue, just like the two Suzukis. Andersson broke his engine while holding a very good sixth place, while Gardemeister experienced several gearbox problems before retiring in the first super special stage.

Rally Mexico – Day 1 – TOP 10