SS7: Latvala stops Neuville’s run

Jari-Matti Latvala ended Thierry Neuville’s run of four stage wins when he topped the times though the second pass of the Moselland vineyard stage.

The Finn was fastest by 2.6sec in his Volkswagen Polo R from Neuville’s Ford Fiesta RS to stretch his lead to 4.6sec as their enthralling battle for supremacy headed towards the final stage of the second leg.

“It was a hard stage with a lot of hairpins, gravel and dirt,” said Latvala. “There were a lot of nasty places. In one way it was nice, but in another it was hard. I had a good go and I’m really satisfied with my performance there.”

Neuville admitted there was nothing more he could have done to match Latvala. “I was at the maximum and I don’t know where I could gain another half second even. I can’t do more. I started to understeer towards the end, it was becoming too warm for the tyres,” he explained.

Dani Sordo was third, 4.2sec behind Latvala and the Spaniard also reported understeer in his Citroen DS3.

Team-mate Mikko Hirvonen was fourth, as he has been on every stage today, and the Finn now has a sizeable gap both in front and behind him on the leaderboard. “I have a good rhythm and I don’t want to up my limits further because I feel I will make a mistake,” he said.

Almost 17sec slower than Hirvonen was Mads Ostberg and the frustrated Norwegian is now almost 80sec behind him on the leaderboard in fifth

“I changed the car in service to give me more confidence. I changed it again before this stage and it took away that confidence. So I will try to change it back again now. I have no confidence or rhythm and when you don’t have a good rhythm here you lose a lot of time,” he explained.

Evgeny Novikov rounded off the top six, the Russian adopting a cautious policy in his Fiesta after yesterday’s opening stage crash.