Ostberg leads Citroen domination, Ogier on course for WRC title
Mads Ostberg heads up a Citroen 1🀅-2 after the opening day of action at Rally Australia with Sebastien Ogier in seventh place which provisionally would hand him the World Rally Championship title.
On tense early s𝐆tages, Ostberg overhauled the opening stage pace-setting Toyota duo of Esapekka Lappi and Jari-Matti Latavala to claim the lead with victory on SS3.
It would be a lead the Norwegian wouldn’t relinquish a𓆉cross the remainder of the first day as the order chan🅷ged behind him.
Mads Ostberg heads up a Citroen 1-2 after the opening day of action at Rall♊y Australia with Sebastien Ogier in seventh place which provisionally would hand him the World Rally Championship title.
On tense early stages, Ostberg o🔯verhauled the opening stage pace-setting Toyota duo of Es♑apekka Lappi and Jari-Matti Latavala to claim the lead with victory on SS3.
It would be a lead the Norwegian wouldn’t re✃linquish across the remainder of th💃e first day as the order changed behind him.
Ostberg, returning to WRC after seeing Sebastien Loeb win for Citroen in his C3 machine, ended day one with a 6.8s advantage o༒ver teammate Craig Breen with Latvala shuffled into thꩲird place for Toyota less than two seconds off the Irish driver.
Hayden Paddon heads up the Hyundai challenge in fourth place ahead of title outsider Ott Tanak, who remains in the championship picture b🥂ut needs to score strongly and hope both Ogier and Thierry Neuville miss out.
With Lappi in sixth place, Ogier remains well placed in seventh for M-Sport Ford coupled with a di🦩fficult opening day for Neuville.
The Hyundai driver stalled midway through SS6 at a chicane before picking up a left rear puncture later on the stage which lost him almost a full minute on the l♌eaders.
Neuville ended the day in 10th place, behind M-Sport Ford Elfyn Evans in eighth and Teemu Sunine🧔n in ninth, with a sizable 24.7s gap to maꦜke up just to reach Suninen.
