Latvala bites the Mexican dust

Or a rock, rather. It didn’t really take long for Jari-Matti Latvala’s ugly companion, the infamous Bad Luck, to rise again and hit the Finn where it hurts the most. With a bang, Latvala was out of the rally on the very first stage of the day, after hitting the rock which made it’s way to the middle of the road, and breaking the wishbone on Polo R WRC. Is he cursed, jinxed even?

Rally Mexico would not be what it is if Latvala was the only one to suffer early problems. Chris Atkinson and Evgeny Novikov were the two other most notable victims of either malfunctions or collisions with unnamed objects. As a result, they both lost huge amount of time and are placed well down the order after first loop of stages.

Yesterday, Sebastien Ogier had to defend his tyre choice for qualifying stage, and was forced to pick less than favourable starting position as a result, but today Frenchman is back in office and setting a blinding pace. Actually, it’s not THAT blinding, seeing how healthy number of drivers are able to match it so far, but it’s no doubt Ogier is very serious about keeping the momentum from Monte Carlo and Sweden.

Second place after morning loop lies in the hands of Mads Ostberg with Mikko Hirvonen rounding up the top three. Best thing about it, top four crews are separated by less than half a minute!