Tanak pulls clear from Ogier

Top 15 classification after SS7 at Rallye Deutschland

Ott Tanak has pushed ahead to strengthen his lead at Rallye Deutschland following the Friday afternoon loop with Sebastien Ogier keeping hold of second place ahead of Thierry Neuville.

Following his victory at Rally Finland, the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver has maintained his momentum to keep the pressure on the leading World Rally Championship duo in Germany.

Tanak leads by 12.3s from M-Sport Ford’s Ogier with current WRC drivers’ championship leader Neuville keeping hold of third place 27.4s off of the Estonian driver.

Tanak claimed a hat-trick of stage wins on Friday’s second loop to extend his lead as he looks to hunt down the top two in the championship standings.

Elfyn Evans produced a strong charge over the second loop to jump up to fourth place for M-Sport Ford with Jari-Matti Latvala one second back in fifth place for Toyota.

Dani Sordo holds sixth place for Hyundai by just 0.1s from Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi at the end of SS7. Citroen’s lead driver Craig Breen held eighth place – almost a minute off of leader Tanak – one second ahead of Andreas Mikkelsen for Hyundai.

Teemu Suninen retains the final points-paying place in 10^th for M-Sport Ford with Citroen’s Mads Ostberg rounding out the front-running challengers.

Jan Kopecky continues to lead the WRC2 class for Skoda with a 22.2s lead over Citroen’s Yoann Bonato.