Latvala heads Ford challenge

BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila lie third after today’s opening leg of Rally de España.

The Finns are 19.9sec from the lead in their Ford Focus RS World Rally Car after a day of mixed surface speed tests in the hills west of Barcelona.

Team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen are fifth in another Focus RS WRC.

The Ford duo sampled a demanding day’s competition in this 12th and penultimate round of the FIA World Rally Championship. The rally was a pure asphalt encounter in recent years but to celebrate its 20th season in the WRC, organisers reverted to its original format of mixed surface competition. It is the first traditional mixed gravel and asphalt round of the championship since 1996.

Latvala and Hirvonen tackled two identical loops of three special stages covering 125.96km, with their Focus RS WRCs in full gravel specification and fitted with Pirelli’s hard compound Scorpion tyres.

Two stages were mixed surface and one was dirt only, but the bias over the day leaned heavily towards gravel. The constant surface changes tested the drivers’ rhythm, while the asphalt sections became slippery as cars dragged stones onto the roads as they cut corners in search of the shortest route.

Fog made the gravel roads damp this morning and Latvala was second initially, despite stalling his engine at the start of the opening stage. He slipped to third by the mid-leg service break in the rally base of Salou, 13.1sec from the lead. As the sun broke through and temperatures rose to 20ºC, the surface dried for the afternoon tests. Latvala maintained his hold on the final podium place and will restart tomorrow with Petter Solberg just 2.5sec behind.

"A lot of gravel was pulled onto the asphalt by the cars ahead of us this morning and I didn’t expect so much," he said. "It surprised me and spoiled my driving. The car set-up was great, the improvement needed to come from me. It was a demanding morning, with fog adding to the difficulties. The afternoon started well but I over-cooked the tyres on the long test and that cost time on the next stage as well.

"On the final stage I hit a big rock on a gravel section with the right front wheel, and the noise from the front of the car made me think I had punctured the tyre. I eased off but when the surface switched to gravel the noise stopped so I speeded up again. I’m annoyed because it was just a bent wheel and I lost time that I could have avoided. I wanted to be further up the leaderboard but I had a good asphalt test before the rally, so I’m feeling confident about tomorrow on that surface," he added.

Hirvonen ended the morning in fifth, 11.4sec behind his team-mate. The 30-year-old Finn remained there on the second pass through the stages and returned to Salou 22.5sec behind Latvala, admitting that he struggled to find a good rhythm throughout the day.

"I almost went off the road about 1km after the start of the first stage and it knocked my rhythm for the rest of the test," said Hirvonen. "I attacked too hard in a fast corner that was very slippery. It came as a nasty surprise! The mixed surfaces were tricky because the car in gravel specification moved around a lot on asphalt and I needed to be careful, especially on roads that were technical anyway.”

"My driving wasn’t as clean as I would have liked and I over-heated the brakes on the long stage this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve done that in four years. I know tomorrow’s stages well. I have driven them since 2005, so I hope I can put that experience to good use," he added.

With the dirt stages completed, the BP Ford mechanics converted the Focus RS WRCs from gravel specification to asphalt trim during an extended service, ahead of two days of sealed surface action.