After the end of day 3 and 6 stages away from the finish line, Finnish driver Mikko Hirvonen still leads the rally and has made his position much better with a lead of over 1 minute and 11 seconds over 2nd place runner Mads Ostberg who was able to jump ahead of Novikov who finished day 2 2nd and drops to 3rd on day 3. Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah has moved into 4th place in what is looking like an amazing run into a whole of points finish, but Nasser has a big a challenge to fend off Ford’s Petter Solberg who has jumped into 5th place after winning 4 stages today running under the Super Rally rules. Solberg charged to 4th place on stage 15 but some more trouble this time coming from the power steering dropped him back to 5th.
Patrik Sandell crashed his Prodrive Mini out of fourth on SS14. Sandell was the highest ranking Mini after a difficult rally for Mini in Portugal. Martin Prokop, Dennis Kuipers, Sebastien Ogier, Peter van Merksteijn Jr and Jari Ketomaa continue the top 10 respectively.
Previous Rally leader Latvala has suffered after returning under Super Rally and still lies in 18th.
KSA’s Yazeed Al Rajhi still continues impressively in the 15th position.
Leading positions after SS15:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Mikko Hirvonen Citroen 2h43m46.2s
2. Mads Ostberg Adapta Ford + 1m11.9s
3. Evgeny Novikov M-Sport Ford + 1m41.2s
4. Nasser Al-Attiyah Qatar Citroen + 6m10.1s
5. Petter Solberg Ford + 6m26.5s
6. Martin Prokop Czech Ford + 6m47.5s
7. Dennis Kuipers M-Sport Ford + 7m29.8s
8. Sebastien Ogier VW Skoda + 8m00.2s
9. Peter van Merksteijn Jr van Merksteijn Citroen + 8m38.7s
10. Jari Ketomaa Autotek Ford + 11m36.7s