Mikkelsen retakes Rally Turkey lead after drama for Neuville, Ogier

Top 15 classification after SS10 at Rally Turkey

Andreas Mikkelsen has inherited the lead once again at Rally Turkey following a mechanical nightmare for Hyundai Thierry Neuville with Sebastien Ogier also avoided a similar scare.

On the opening stage of Saturday’s action, World Rally Championship leader Neuville suffered a similar fate to Elfyn Evans and Mads Ostberg from Friday with suspension damage which has forced him out of the running.

One stage later Neuville’s WRC title rival Ogier sustained a wishbone break on his M-Sport Ford on the unforgiving terrain at Rally Turkey but after a speedy roadside fix by the defending WRC champion and co-driver Julien Ingrassia it saw the #1 car return to action on SS10 - but did pick up a 60-second time penalty for a late start to the stage.

Despite the penalty, Ogier battled back to take victory on SS10 to reduce the time lost to the leaders but still slipped down to fourth place in the overall classification.

That enabled Mikkelsen to jump into the lead, having headed up the opening stages, with a 36.3-second advantage on back-to-back winner in Finland and Germany Ott Tanak for Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Jari-Matti Latvala continues to chase team-mate Tanak just over two seconds behind him in third place with a 7.7-second gap to Ogier in fourth.

Further back Hayden Paddon is producing a solid Rally Turkey jumping up to fifth place comfortably ahead of Citroen’s Craig Breen who has been hit with a number of minor issues to see him drop off the pace.

Teemu Suninen (M-Sport Ford) and Esapekka Lappi (Toyota) round out the premier class WRC runners in seventh and eighth respectively with Henning Solberg leading the WRC2 class for Skoda in ninth overall.