A day of intermittent showers and sunshine dampened down Raglan’s gravel roads today, Friday for Rally NZ drivers. At the end of the day Sebastian Loeb was the leader with a total time of 2:07:35.0.
Mikko Hirvonen’s stunning speed on the final part of the famous Whaanga Coast stage allowed him to rebuild a 7.6-second lead in his Brother Rally New Zealand battle with Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb.
The reigning world champion had been edging ever closer to Hirvonen with a string of fastest times on the preceding three stages.
But as had been the case in the morning, Hirvonen had the edge on Whaanga Coast, particularly its concluding section, and by the end of the stage he had been able to turn his tiny 1.5s lead into a slightly more comfortable 7.6s cushion. All Loeb could do was admire his team-mate’s efforts.
“Mikko was again very fast at the end. I don’t know why,” said Loeb. “I can’t match his speed there.”
Hirvonen ended the stage on a concerned note, though, as he feared that the improving weather would start to penalise his position at the head of the start order.
“It has been drying a lot more than we expected,” the Finn admitted. “If the next two stages are like that we could be in a little bit of trouble.”
But he added: “I am having so much fun and this is a really great battle with Seb to be exchanging times back and forward like we are.”
Jari-Matti Latvala’s bid for Brother Rally New Zealand victory appears to be over after a mistake on the second run through Te Akau South cost him four minutes and dropped his Ford Fiesta RS WRC from third to ninth place. The Finn was trying to push to catch the leading Citroens on the two Te Akau stages after saving tyres earlier in the loop, but became entangled in a fence after a ‘cut’ on the inside of a corner went wrong. Latvala needed help from spectators to get going again, and eventually finished the stage 4m47s behind the leaders.
A large crowd turned out at the remote service on Raglan Airfield to see the action with over twenty helicopters flying in.
| Rally New Zealand | |||||||||||||||
| Results for Day 1 – Raglan and Te Akau stages | |||||||||||||||
| Pos. | No. | Driver Co-Driver |
Vehicle | Cls. | Total Time |
Tbl Tbn |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Sebastien Loeb Daniel Elena |
Citroen DS3 WRC |
WRC | 2:07:35.0 | **** **** |
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| 2 | 2 | Mikko Hirvonen Jarmo Lehtinen |
Citroen DS3 WRC |
WRC | 2:07:39.0 | +4.0 +4.0 |
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| 3 | 6 | Evgeny Novikov Denis Giraudet |
Ford Fiesta RS WRC |
WRC | 2:09:06.0 | +1:31.0 +1:27.0 |
|||||||||
| 4 | 4 | Petter Solberg Chris Patterson |
Ford Fiesta RS WRC |
WRC | 2:09:14.3 | +1:39.3 +8.3 |
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| 5 | 5 | Ott Tanak Kuldar Sikk |
Ford Fiesta RS WRC |
WRC | 2:09:22.0 | +1:47.0 +7.7 |
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