Saturday | 13 Feb 2016

SS16: Ogier widens lead over Paddon

Sébastien Ogier extended his Rally Sweden lead over Hayden Paddon to 15.9sec after winning the second pass through the Vargäsen stage on Saturday afternoon.

Stage info: SS16

Vargåsen 2, 24.70km
Rally Sweden’s best-known test, Vargåsen is famous for Colin’s Crest – a blind jump 12.8km from the start where fans gather in their thousands. Thierry Neuville set a new record last year with a 44 metre jump and the biggest leap this year will receive the award named in memory of the late Colin McRae. The stage starts on a narrow and twisty road but becomes wider and more flowing.

 Conditions were much improved compared with this morning’s deep snow and the Frenchman speared his Volkswagen Polo R through the test 5.7sec faster than Paddon’s Hyundai i20, despite a massive slide 1km after the start.

Ogier has created some breathing space for himself with just tonight’s super special stage around Karlstad trotting track and tomorrow’s live TV Power Stage remaining.

Paddon appeared to have settled for second, the Kiwi explaining: “It’s about maintaining my position now. We went into this stage 10sec behind Ogier and that’s like a minute to anyone else. We need to be smart. We struggled a bit in there, I think we used our studs in the stage before.”

Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen completed a 1-2-3 in the stage for Volkswagen, while Dani Sordo eased the pressure on himself in sixth by widening his advantage over Henning Solberg to 20.9sec. Solberg is now only 1.5sec ahead of Craig Breen.

Kris Meeke finished with the right rear tyre of Citroën’s DS 3 pushed off the rim, the Briton bouncing in and out of a ditch near the finish, and Yazeed Al Rajhi retired his Ford Fiesta RS after going off the road.

Head to WRC+ to see the latest onboard and video reports from Rally Sweden

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