Tanak keeps Ogier in check

Top 15 classification after SS11 at Rallye Deutschland

Ott Tanak has retained his lead after Saturday’s opening loop of stages at Rallye Deutschland with a 14.1s advantage on defending WRC champion Sebastian Ogier, while less than two seconds splits three drivers in the fight for the final podium place.

Fresh from victory at Rally Finland, Tanak has maintained his lead from Friday by adding almost two seconds to his overnight lead, despite failing to win any of the stages this morning after dominating on Friday with five wins across six stages.

With M-Sport Ford’s Ogier unable to make inroads into Tanak’s lead, the French driver has pulled clear of the chasing pack with Toyota’s Jari-Matti Latvala leaping up from fifth to third on SS11. The Finnish driver has edged WRC championship leader Thierry Neuville off the provisional podium places by just 0.1s with Hyundai team-mate Dani Sordo in fifth place just 1.8s off Neuville.

Esapekka Lappi produced a strong SS10 and SS11 charge to move up to sixth place and is just 6.1s off Sordo for Toyota, while Citroen's Craig Breen also kept pace on this morning’s final stage with victory to take seventh place.

A host of WRC drivers were promoted a place when M-Sport Ford’s Elfyn Evans spun on SS10 and the resulting damage means he missed SS11 and duly picked up a seven-minute time penalty.

Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen moves up to eighth place with M-Sport Ford’s Teemu Suninen and Mads Ostberg in the Citroen rounding out the points places with Evans dropping down to 13^th in the overall classification.

WRC2 has had a shake-up in the lead with Eric Camilli heading the field for Ford ahead of Kajetan Kajetanowicz.