Sescs leads the Saudi Rally after the third day, Ogier takes his ninth crown

ford driver martins sescus He becomes the new provisional leader of the Saudi Rally and will enter the final day with a minimum 3.4 inch advantage over Fundai. Thierry Neuville Following French Hyundai Adrian Formeau was given a one-minute penalty. dominated the day on Friday, rising from 1st to 4th place..

3 people The difference in ranking between the winning candidates is 5.8 points.– Rovanperä in 5th, Ogier in 6th and Evans in 8th – and after the first 14 specials, the world title race is tentatively open with eight-time world champion Ogier, part-time driver for Toyota, one point ahead of Evans.

The Hyundai driver was given a 60-second penalty for showing up one minute early for SS14A, the end-of-the-day pre-service check. Along the way, Fourmaux had completed the penultimate stage 2.4 seconds ahead of Martiš Sescous. With the time corrections, Sescous now leads the rally, ahead of Thierry Neuville and Takamoto Katsuta, with Fourmaux now 57.6 seconds behind the leader.

The penalty came after a frightening final stage for the participants, with both Sescous and Fourmaux sustaining tire damage but reaching the finish line without stopping.

On the contrary, the leader of the World Rally Championship, Elfyn Evans He lost more than two minutes in the 11th special when he stopped to repair a puncture on his Toyota’s left rear tire. This demoted him to 10th place, but he eventually rose to 8th place.

Evans had a three-point lead over teammate Sébastien Ogier at the start of the weekend, but is provisionally sixth and at risk of losing out to the Frenchman, who is on track to equal compatriot Sébastien Loeb’s record of nine titles.

“The puncture alarm went off right after (the stage) started,” Evans said. “It was going pretty slowly, but there were so many things left that we had to make the decision to change as much as we could. It’s not ideal.”

Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera, third title contender, was fifth, with Ogier also suffering a puncture in the closing stages and losing the position to the Finn.

This Friday, Tänak signed up for Four Mo’s three-car special. It started with Algra 1, Sescs and Rovanpera, before signing up for a dramatic SS14 to bid farewell to the WRC in Saudi Arabia and move to single-seaters in Japan’s Super Formula.