Ogier holds slender lead at Wales Rally GB

Sebastien Ogier holds a narrow lead over Volkswagen team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala at the end of the opening leg of Wales Rally GB.

Both claimed scored stage wins over 145 competitive kilometres, but it was Ogier who led throughout a muddy day to take 6.6sec advantage into the overnight break.

The newly-crowned world champion won three of the four morning tests to lead by 9.5sec at the mid-leg service in Newtown, but Latvala took the afternoon honours as the polished surface made conditions even more slippery.

“It was difficult to drive this morning but I really enjoyed the stages,” said Ogier.

“This afternoon was just a question of surviving. Conditions were slippery and I was fighting the car all the way,”

Ogier misjudged a hairpin on the afternoon’s opening stage while Latvala admitted he was lucky not to roll after hitting a hole in the first test.

Mads Østberg and the retiring Mikko Hirvonen, battled for third. The Norwegian Citroen driver held the advantage in the morning but Hirvonen moved ahead to finish 1min 07.2sec off the lead in his Ford Fiesta.

Østberg struggled with the handling of his Citroen DS3, and dropped to fifth in the final stage. Team-mate Kris Meeke moved to fourth, despite a 10sec penalty for a jump start in the opening stage. He was 7.7sec behind Hirvonen and 0.7sec ahead of Østberg, despite twice making a mistake at the same hairpin.

Thierry Neuville was sixth in a Hyundai i20, the Belgian one of many drivers to lose time at a tight hairpin in the final stage. Elfyn Evans, Ott Tänak, Henning Solberg and Martin Prokop completed the leaderboard, all in Fiesta RS cars.

Solberg lost time with a morning misfire while Prokop spun into a ditch in the final stage.

Andreas Mikkelsen retired his Polo R with broken suspension after hitting a bank while in second and Juho Hänninen (Hyundai) went off the road.

Robert Kubica survived a brush with a bank, a spin and an overshoot to lie 11th, while power steering problems and front differential issues delayed Hayden Paddon’s i20 in 12th.

Australia’s Molly Taylor lies fifth in class and 37th outright after a challenging day with handling issues in her Citroen DS3 R3T.

Tomorrow’s second leg comprises nine more stages covering 113.74km. There are two identical loops of four tests in north Wales.

VIDEO: Morning Stages

VIDEO: Afternoon Stages

POSITIONS: End of Leg 1 – Wales Rally GB