Day 2 of the FIA World Rally Championship’s 12th round has seen both crews of the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford rally team remain in Manufacturer Championship points scoring positions with one day of competition remaining.
Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila head the charge in eighth place after a faultless day of driving while team-mates Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin remain comfortably in 10th and in the final manufacturer point scoring position.
Latvala’s day saw him set top-ten stage times on every occasion but the young Finn admitted he couldn’t quite find the perfect setup for his Stobart Ford Focus RS WRC07 and this in turn dented his confidence on the fast Spanish Tarmac.
The 23-year-old had a reasonable day fighting in a battle for seventh position with Australian driver Chris Atkinson. Despite finishing behind in the fight, the Finn will head into tomorrow’s final day just 3.4 seconds adrift of a further drivers point.
Wilson got off to a good start this morning but some slight understeer on stage 8 saw him drop a few seconds before he regained his confidence with the car and set another quick time on the final test before service.
With some differential changes made to his Focus RS during service the young Brit headed back out this afternoon with a better feeling and balance to his car despite the ever increasing presence of loose gravel dragged onto the stage surface.
A repeat loop of three stages was the makeup of day 2 offering crews 127.98 kilometres of competitive action. Today’s leg also played host to the longest stage of the rally, the monster 38.27 kilometre El Priorat/La Ribera d’Ebre test.
A cool morning breeze saw 64 of the original 69 starters head north-west of Rally HQ in Salou to tackle the three high speed morning tests. Temperatures began to warm as the day went on and sunshine broke through for the second consecutive day of clear sky racing.
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