Sebastien Ogier snatched fastest time in Thursday morning’s sun-kissed shakedown at Rally Australia.
It was tight at the top of the timesheets, but the championship leader’s final run through the 5.07km Bucca test was sufficient to edge the tying Andreas Mikkelsen and Ott Tänak by two-tenths of a second.
Tänak and Toyota Gazoo team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala set the pace in the opening run though the forested gravel road test in their Yaris World Rally Cars. Tänak and the third Yaris of Esapekka Lappi then lowered the benchmark during their second runs.
Times continued to tumble as competitors cleaned the roads of loose gravel. Ogier powered his Ford Fiesta to the stop of the standings in his third pass, slicing more tenths from his personal best in his fourth and final run.
Mikkelsen was one of the busiest of the frontrunners, completing six runs in his Hyundai i20. The Norwegian ended level with Tänak, both posting their best times in their fourth runs.
“It’s a nice shakedown, very representative of the stages,” said Tänak. “We also have a couple of stages on the same pieces of road, so it was nice to get a feeling on how everything is working.
source: wrc.com