SS15:
Leaders
hold
steady

Stage description

This is Saturday’s longest stage and a fans’ favourite. It is also one of the quickest with wide roads and several flat-out straights. Early in the test the road skirts the edge of Lake Holmsjon and follows the shores of another lake later in the stage. Four uphill open hairpins near the midpoint calm the pace.

How the action unfolded

There were no changes to the top-10 positions on the repeated Rammen stage, with the lead trio of Sebastien Ogier, Sebastien Loeb and Mads Ostberg setting the three fastest times.
 
Further down the order, Khalid Al Qassimi retired from eleventh place after he went off mid-stage and crashed into some bushes. The Abu Dhabi driver nursed his Citroen DS3 to the finish control with a broken front wheel but stopped a few yards later when his Fiesta’s radiator was found to be broken.

In the battle for sixth, Thierry Neuville’s chances of catching Juho Hanninen took a knock when he lost a few seconds with a gear selection problem. Another faultless performance for Hanninen enabled him to increase his advantage to 15.8sec.

After the finish control crews set off on the 15km road section to the day closing Hagfors Sprint stage.