Jari-Matti Latvala needs a miracle to keep Volkswagen team-mate Sebastien Ogier within range going into the final day of Coates Hire Rally Australia.
Spotting Ogier 44 points in the World Rally Championship with three rounds remaining after the northern New South Wales event, Latvala saw his title stocks take a body blow over opting for the wrong mix of tyres.
Latvala took a punt on advice which suggested the second run through the 50km Nambucca stage would be wet, a prediction which went wide of the mark.
Subsequently he sprung for a balance of two hard and two soft compound tyres with two soft options as spares.
Ogier went in the opposite direction, a move which enabled him to seize control with six stages remaining.
“The information that we had was that there was developing showers near the stage and it looked like the showers were into the stage but they never reached the area,” Latvala told Speedcafe.com
“(but) the stage was dry.”
The preference Latvala holds to use the same compound tyre on each axle instead of a lopsided choice which Ogier opted for may well come back to haunt him.
“I don’t like driving the car with three hard tyres and one soft tyre,” Latvala explained.
“I want to have the same tyres (compound) on the axle.
“It’s just under 100km today (total competitive stages), almost the same distance as day two.
“So we need to keep the title alive but it’s not easy.
“You know what happened in Germany, anything can happen so we need to keep going.
“I trusted the information and I believed that there was going to be some showers but it was fully dry.
“The disadvantage was bigger than I expected because when you have two softs on the rear and when you have two spares in this situation it was not helping.”
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