The final round of the WRC season began this morning in Wales under low light and foggy conditions which hampered each participant's efforts. The Port Talbot stage is usually a very fast route but patches of heavy fog greatly reduced visibility, dense enough for certain crews to prefer driving across the rock-strewn and muddy trail without the light pods on in order to diminish the glare.
Ford's Mikko Hirvonen was one of those drivers, and doing so seems to have been beneficial. He accomplished the fastest time, taking 9'15"2 to reach this stage's finish line. The Finn was actually quite surprised at being quicker than everyone else since he was not taking any risks in such difficult conditions!
The championship rivals came next. After both made their way through the difficult and tricky trail, Citroën Sport driver Sébastien Loeb took second place 6.5 seconds behind Hirvonen, while Marcus Grönholm took third place a further 5.5 seconds away.
Loeb commented that with such low visibility he had to trust his notes and race on, while Grönholm subtly mentioned that the rally was still far from over.
Jari-Matti Latvala, very motivated following his Rally Ireland podium two weeks ago, unhappily drove into fourth position at the controls of his Stobart Ford car. A pair of works Subaru Imprezas followed with almost identical times: Chris Atkinson claimed fifth place 19 seconds behind the stage winner while Petter Solberg took sixth only 0'00"3 behind.
Dani Sordo was far from fastest on this stage with his works Citroën C4, completing the distance with a time 26.3 seconds longer than the stage leader's. Less than a second away, Subaru's Xevi Pons was eighth-fastest.
Mads Ostberg was next in ninth position at the wheel of his Subaru. Matthew Wilson completed the top ten for the Stobart Ford team, 32.9 seconds away from the best stage time.
Henning Solberg was unlucky this morning: the Stobart Ford driver lost a minute after puncturing a rear tyre about six kilometres from the finish line.
With only the first stage of the season's final rally now completed, the leaderboard shows identical results: Mikko Hirvonen leads the event, followed by Sébastien Loeb, Marcus Grönholm, Jari-Matti Latvala and Chris Atkinson.
The difficult and variable-surface Resolfen route will be competed upon next.
