Meeke leads dramatic Rally de Portugal

With plenty of dramas happening around him, Kris Meeke enjoyed a comfortable run to hold a handy lead at Rally de Portugal.

The day was highlighting by the fiery exit of Hayden Paddon, who along with co-driver escaped unhurt after their Hyundai WRC left the road and was destroyed in a subsequent fire.

Meeke, who is running a part-time schedule for Citroen as it develops it’s next-generation World Rally Car, was on the pace despite missing both WRC events in Mexico and Argentina.

The Briton, took the lead on the day’s opening test and headed the timesheets on four others to build a 31.9 second lead over Sebastien Ogier with two days remaining.

Meeke has the best of the conditions during the first pass as Ogier cleared the roads. However, his performance was more impressive in the afternoon as the second pass over the roads meant that Meeke in fact had the tougher conditions with plenty of deep ruts.

The lead was out to 35.2 seconds, before the Volkswagen driver narrowed the gap in the final two asphalt street tests in Porto.

It was in fact Dani Sordo who was up to second in his Hyundai. However, a puncture cost him 10 seconds, but is still within touching distance of Ogier.

A steady driver from VW’s Andreas Mikkelsen has him in fourth ahead of the other Hyundai of Thierry Neuville. Stephane Lefebvre was sixth despite a puncture in his DS 3.

Mads Ostberg had gearbox issues in his Ford Fiesta RS but improvements enabled the Norwegian to climb to seventh, with team-mate Eric Camilli eighth.

Jari-Matti Latvala was sitting in fourth despite a set-up that was too stiff for the conditions. However, the Finn hit a hole and broke his Polo R’s power steering, dropping more than three minutes wrestling it through the remaining stages. He finished 1.1sec ahead of WRC 2 leader Pontus Tidemand

Australia’s Scott Pedder is sitting 11th in the WRC 2 category. He had an eventful start to the event rolling his Skoda during the shakedown. His crew getting a somewhat bruised car to the startline for the event.

Then a promising start to the day was blunted when he suffered a puncture on the second test of the day, dropping them well down the running order in the process.

“We went into the first stage pretty positive, I set what I thought was a pretty average sort of time, but we quickly realised we’d finished second fastest of the WRC2 runners,” said Pedder.

“Realistically I think we’re still in with a shot of a top five WRC2 finish if we can keep our noses clean. The guys at the front are running at such a fast pace there is every chance there could be a few retirements. If things go our a podium is still a possibility.”

The only other major retirement was Kevin Abbring (Hyundai), sidelined with a broken steering arm after clipping a bank.

Tomorrow’s leg is the longest of the weekend. Competitors cover two identical loops of three stages totalling 165.28km.

VIDEO: Opening Stages

VIDEO: Afternoon stages