Ogier leads in Mexico Rally

Sebastien Ogier will take a 2.3-second lead into the second day of the Rally Mexico after edging out Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb on the first leg.

The French pair were the class of the field as they built up a lead of over a minute over nearest challenger Mikko Hirvonen (Ford), who won the opening race of the season in Sweden last month.

Ogier will have to be at his best to fend off the challenge of his multiple-world champion team-mate Loeb on Saturday’s second leg, with the leader set to run first on the loose surface gravel.

“I am happy but to be really happy you have to be first on Sunday and it’s going to be difficult to keep this place to the end because I will have to clean the road tomorrow,” said Ogier, who posted the quickest time on four of Friday’s six gravel stages.

“It has been very close all the day between me and Sebastien and for sure it will be a good opportunity for him tomorrow to overtake. But I will continue to push and do my best.”

Loeb, seeking a fifth straight win in Mexico, said he was more than satisfied to be on the tail of his team-mate heading into the second leg.

“It’s been a great battle since the start of the day we are fighting 100%,” he said. “Ogier has been very fast today and for sure I am happy with my road position for tomorrow because I didn’t want to be cleaning the road.”

As world championship leader, Hirvonen did all the road-sweeping on the first leg and admitted it had been a tough day at the wheel.

He said: “It’s been very, very difficult. The car is sliding and it’s very difficult to drive. But we haven’t had any mistakes so that has been good.”

The Finn at least fared better than factory Ford team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, who finished the day in fourth place, 91 seconds down on Hirvonen, after he picked up a puncture on stage four.

Evgeny Novikov finished fifth ahead of Henning Solberg, Dennis Kuipers and Nasser Al-Attiyah.

Britain’s Matthew Wilson suffered major disappointment when he dropped out of fourth place following an electrical problem on stage seven, while Mads Ostberg, Ken Block and Petter Solberg will hope for better on Saturday after all hit trouble on the opening leg.