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    Sesks leads Saudi Arabia, Ogier clear of Evans

    2 weeks ago

    Mãrtiņš Sesks won all three of Thursday morning's stages, while it's advantage Sébastien Ogier in the title racePhotography by M-Sport & ToyotaWords by Luke BarryMãrtiņš Sesks leads Rally Saudi Arabia for M-Sport after Thursday morning’s loop, with the leading World Rally Championship title contender Sébastien Ogier only seventh.Ott Tänak led the event after Wednesday evening’s superspecial in host city Jeddah, but it was Sesks who stormed to the front as the rally hit the gravel.Despite not being in a Ford Puma Rally1 for nearly four months, the Latvian won the third stage of his WRC career to lead an event for the very first time.“We are not only fast in Latvia, it seems,” he remarked.SS3, The Moon Stage, was far more technical in nature than SS2 Al Fasallyah, but Sesks was fastest again as road cleaning played into the hands of those running towards the rear of the field.However Sesks misjudged a fork in the road on SS4 Khulays, turning up to the left when the road instead jinked right. Needing to stop and reverse before continuing, Sesks dropped 6.8s on the stage but held onto the lead by 1.3s“Visually I couldn’t see it, but yeah, my fault,” Sesks said of his mistake. “Too long rally to talk about [leading] guys!”That lead is held over Adrien Fourmaux, who is enjoying a big battle with Sami Pajari. The Toyota is just 0.4s behind the Hyundai and 1.7s from the lead, setting the pace on SS4.The leading trio have 13.1s in hand over fourth-placed Tänak, who has a three-second buffer over his Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville. Without a slow rear-right puncture towards the end of SS3, it’s likely Neuville would’ve been ahead though.Takamoto Katsuta completed the morning in sixth spot, 1.7s behind Neuville and 19.5s off the lead.Ogier had been second overall after the day’s opening stage, but lost over 20s simply due to road cleaning on SS3.That dropped the Frenchman to seventh (+27.6s), where he remained at the end of the loop, but crucially he’s 22.7s ahead of his title rival Elfyn Evans.Evans made what he called a “silly mistake” on SS4 as he turned too early for a junction and had to reverse at the same place that caught out Sesks. But the real damage was done on SS2, where he lost 12.8s to Ogier.Kalle Rovanperä’s outside shot at the world title looks even more remote however, as the Finn picked up a puncture on SS4, leaving him 10th overall.“I didn’t hit absolutely anything,” he said. “It just sums up this year quite well, it’s all the time like this. All these punctures are coming from out of nowhere, now it was basically 500m, maybe 1km into the stage and yeah there was nothing. It is what it is.”As it stands, Ogier is set to gain two points on Evans with a three-point deficit prior to the event.World Rally-Raid driver Nasser Al-Attiyah is ninth on his first WRC start since 2015, while the two full-time M-Sport drivers are both outside the top 10.Grégoire Munster has simply struggled for speed, languishing 1m20.5s off his rally-leading team-mate, but did “nurse” a puncture through SS4, while Josh McErlean is three minutes down after as he stopping to change a puncture on SS2.Oliver Solberg is the leading Rally2 car – 7.7s ahead of Munster’s Rally1 Puma – but Gus Greensmith heading the WRC2 pack.Words:Luke Barry Tags: Mārtinš Sesks, Rally Saudi Arabia, Rally Saudi Arabia 2025, WRC, WRC 2025 Publish Date November 27, 2025 DirtFish https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/11/FXE4tgnN-WRC_SAU_25_M_SESKS_904-780x520.jpg November 27, 2025 Up Next
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