News in Brief: Fiestas / Ourique / Mikkelsen / Sordo

A selection of stories that are making the news at Rally de Portugal

Portuguese fiesta: Forget Mexico, it turns out Portugal is fiesta time! M-Sport’s range of Ford Fiesta rally cars make up 49 per cent of the Rally de Portugal entry. There are six RS WRCs, five RRCs, two S2000s, 14 R5s and 15 R2 cars taking the start.

Ourique shortened: Tomorrow’s Ourique stage has been shortened by 4.83km at the start for safety reasons. The test, run as SS3 and SS6, was one of the worst affected during Tuesday’s flash floods which disrupted the recce and is now 20.21km.

Mikkelsen notes: Andreas Mikkelsen has made new pace notes for the rally. The Norwegian, who made his Volkswagen debut here 12 months ago, blamed his two Rally Mexico crashes on mistakes during the recce and decided to start again with his Portugal notes. “It’s about paying extra attention on the recce,” he said.

More for Sordo?: Dani Sordo hopes a strong result could lead to more gravel outings in a Hyundai i20 “This was like a present. I am doing the four asphalt rallies and here I have the opportunity on gravel to compete with the others. If we do a good result, maybe we can do more,” he said.