Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia and the Citroën Junior Team – who were in the top three of every stage held today – have finished day two of the Jordan Rally in second, behind Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena. Kimi Räikkönen and Kaj Lindström have continued to improve throughout the day and they occupy a provisional eighth place overnight.
Two loops of three stages were on the menu for day two, the longest day of the Jordan Rally comprising 138.28 competitive kilometres. After Suwayma and Kafrain, the crews faced one of the most challenging special stages in the entire World Rally Championship: the 41.45 kilometres of Jordan River.
“The first two stages didn’t really present us with many problems in terms of road sweeping, but the longest stage was tricky,” commented Sébastien Ogier halfway through the day. “Conditions got worse and worse with each of the 41 kilometres. The roads were extremely slippery. Our Citroen C4 WRC worked perfectly though and the tyres showed no signs of weakness at all.”
Kimi Räikkönen took advantage of some slightly softer settings in order to make consistent progress. “We’re just trying to find the right pace,” he said. “The first two stages passed without any problems. At the start of the long stage, I was held up by the dust from the competitor in front of me and I went straight on at a junction. The surface is slippery but I’m very pleased with the adjustments made by the team. The car is softer and I feel a bit more comfortable with it. ”
During the second loop of stages, Sébastien continued his exemplary progress to return to the service park at the end of the day in second overall. “We’ve been on the right road for a few events now and that’s really positive,” he said. “We stuck firmly to our plan throughout the day by staying behind Latvala. There’s a slight feeling of frustration because I think we deserved our strategy to succeed all the way to the end. But it’s nobody’s fault. The team did their job and we did ours.” Sébastien Ogier will start second on the road tomorrow, 3.1 seconds ahead of Latvala.
Kimi was sixth-fastest and then seventh-fastest on the two runs through Suwayma, gaining a bit more experience today. “It was a bit better than yesterday,” he reported. “Right from the start of the recce, we knew that this would be a particularly tricky rally. We just need to learn and rack up more kilometres on all the different surfaces. We had a spin at the end of the day but the important thing is still to be here in the evening. ”
Citroën Junior Team manager Benoit Nogier concluded: “Today has picked up from where we left off previously. Starting from second on the road this morning, Sébastien was a little quicker than Latvala. We would have preferred him to start from a slightly more favourable road position tomorrow, but circumstances worked against us. Kimi showed himself to be consistent, setting times that were close to those of other more experienced competitors. It’s important to remember that this is only his second gravel event in the car on the WRC. It’s also worthy of note that neither of our C4 WRCs have suffered from the slightest mechanical problem. The cars are both quick and reliable. ”