Rallying: Ogier leads into final day of Rally Turkey as Tanak retires

FILE PHOTO: French driver Sebastien Ogier during the Neste Rally in Jyväskylä, Finland August 1, 2019. Lehtikuva/Roni Rekomaa/via REUTERS

(Reuters) – Sebastien Ogier will take a 0.2 second lead over Citroen team mate Esapekka Lappi into the final day of Rally Turkey, with championship leader Ott Tanak retiring his Toyota on Saturday.

Lappi had been 17.7 seconds clear overnight but world champion Ogier reeled in the Finn over the stages near Marmaris. Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen was in third place, one minute 17.1 seconds off the lead.

Last year’s winner Tanak retired in the morning before stage nine in a blow for the Estonian, who leads Hyundai’s Belgian Thierry Neuville by 33 points after 10 of 14 rounds.

Neuville, who lost more than four minutes when he rolled his car into a ditch on the day’s opening stage, was a distant eighth.

“I came here, started to put the helmets on sitting in the car and nothing happens, we can’t fire it up,” Tanak told the wrc.com website.

“Something electrical I guess, everything is in safe mode. Five kilometers before we did the refuel, stopped and started again and it was OK.

“We just need to stay strong and be over it, but it’s difficult to fight for a championship with so many issues like that.”

Ogier is 40 points behind Tanak in the standings and set to make big inroads into that lead.

Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
source: reuters.com