SS11: Ogier extends Portugal advantage

Sebastien Ogier has extended his margin out front on Vodafone Rally de Portugal by claiming his fifth stage win of the gravel event.

Ogier was 3.6 seconds faster than Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb to increase his lead over Jari-Matti Latvala to 11.2s.

“It’s a good stage and we had a good drive on this one,” said Ogier. “It’s looking good [for the victory] but there is a long way to go and there will be a lot of loose gravel on the road tomorrow.”

Ford driver Latvala was 4.3s slower than Ogier through the stage. He said: “In some places I felt the suspension was too soft in some bumps. But in the low stuff it was okay.”

Loeb admitted his efforts to close the gap to Latvala in the overall standings had made little impact. “We tried hard but it was impossible to make any difference to Jari-Matti,” said Loeb. “We had the car more stiff than in the morning and maybe we lose a bit of grip.”

Despite reporting a powersteering problem, Henning Solberg has closed to within 1.1s of M-Sport Stobart team-mate Matthew Wilson, who feared he had damaged the exhaust of his Fiesta on a heavy landing.

Armindo Araujo completed the stage with his MINI John Cooper Works Super 2000 running on three cylinders. He also lost time stopping to change a puncture and has dropped down the leaderboard.

Khalid Al-Qassimi stopped in the stage breaking his Fiesta’s rear suspension hitting a rock.

Standings after SS11: