Sébastien Ogier, current world rally champion, has taken the lead in the Rally Canary Islands on a day marked by the cancellation of the third special due to illegal parking by several spectators.
Authorities have confirmed that over 100 vehicles were found parked illegally in a protected area near the SS3 Tejeda – San Mateo 1 (18.62 km), which prevented its celebration.
In a statement, the FIA explained that “the situation forced the Race Director to cancel the stage to allow for the removal of vehicles from the area”. Spectators were urged to move their vehicles and to park only in authorized areas for the remainder of the event.
After the cancellation, the WRC teams were directed to the fourth special, which would close the morning loop.
Before the cancellation, Ogier had set the best time in the first special of the morning, surpassing Oliver Solberg by 0.5s, which allowed him to unseat yesterday’s leader, Takamoto Katsuta, by 0.8s. “I am satisfied. I expected a very competitive stage. I had good feelings with the car and the competition with my teammates is intense,” Ogier commented.
As expected, Toyota dominated the stage times, occupying the top five positions and leaving Hyundai and M-Sport Ford behind.
The Finnish driver Sami Pajari set the fourth-best time, moving up to third overall, just 0.9s behind the leader and 0.1s behind Katsuta. Solberg, with his time, climbed from tenth to fourth overall, positioning himself 0.7s ahead of his teammate Elfyn Evans.
Dani Sordo, who made his first debut with the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 since Greece 2024, turned out to be the best driver for the Korean brand, despite being 7.6s off Ogier’s strategy. The Spanish driver is in sixth overall.
Sordo expressed his enthusiasm for the rally: “It has been a really beautiful stage and I enjoyed it a lot. I am sure we can improve the car and myself. The team is working very hard, even though we might not be fighting right now, but I am happy with their effort.”
The top 10 standings were completed by Josh McErlean and Jon Armstrong from M-Sport Ford, with only 0.2s difference between them. In the WRC2 category, Yohan Rossel leads with an 11th overall position.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_72d694c7400428ab4ad84a7e747fb973d644dd7b