|
Dead Sea, Jordan: It was a fascinating battle on day one in the Jordan Rally as young Spaniard Dani Sordo held a narrow lead over his Citroen teammate and four-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb while BP-Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally team's Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen kept themselves within striking distance.
Shaikh Khalid Al Qasimi, BP-Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally team's third driver and last year's winner of this rally when it was a candidate WRC event, also impressed with a 10th place finish after eight of the 22 stages were worked off on the opening day.
While the 25-year-old started off in blazing fashion winning the first three stages to garner a 15.1 second lead and increased it to 21 seconds after the fifth stage over his much-feared team Loeb, the Frenchman came back strongly to win three stages and cut that lead to a mere 1.1 second.
Team Abu Dhabi's Finnish pair of Latvala and Hirvonen won one stage each to take third and fourth place overall as the pack battled a series of blind crests and some of the most treacherous corners.
Difficult
While most of the drivers went in fearing the heat, the weather turned kind and some pleasant weather with blowing winds made it easy but it was the challenging and highly technical stages that forced out nearly half a dozen drivers while many others battled back after going off the road many times. "It's been good today, but very difficult," said Sordo. "I will have to go first on the road, so that's not going to be easy but OK, I'll do my best to attack and try and keep the lead."
Loeb, who overcame some initial problems to finish well said, "Now we're in a good position just one second behind Dani and that's good for the Citroen team - but there's still a long way to go."
BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team's Latvala, who is 7.4 seconds behind Loeb said, ""It is an exciting battle - I did not expect it to be this close.
"Today I want to try and keep my position or move up one place, but this is a good position to be in this evening.
Day two's action will take the drivers to another eight stages over 109.84km with two stages taking them to the historic Baptism Site.
|
