Latvala crash gifts Ogier huge lead on Rally Mexico

Sebastien Ogier seems destined to claim Rally Mexico – an event he declared before the event that he couldn’t win – after chief rival, Volkswagen teammate Jari-Matti Latvala, swiped a wheel off his Polo WRC.

Ogier now leads by 50.5s over Citroen’s Mads Ostberg, with Andreas Mikkelsen up to third in the second VW Polo, with Elfyn Evans (Ford) and Dani Sordo (Hyundai) next up.

Latvala’s first scare of the day came on SS11: "There was a big rock in a corner, I cut over it and the impact sent a big shock up though the damper,” he said.

But although he escaped that moment, he wasn’t so lucky on the next test, which he completed with the rear-left corner of his Polo completely missing. He lost over six minutes, and his car was to be towed back to the service park.

"It happened on a fast right-hander,” he reported. “We got a little bit wide, hit a bank, broke the rear suspension and lost the wheel.”

Yesterday’s headline-maker Ott Tanak didn’t make it into Saturday’s stages after all, as his engine’s coil hadn’t dried out after its trip to the bottom of a lake and stranded the car on the road section to the first stage.

Despite three hours of work overnight, one thing his M-Sport crew couldn’t do was physically dry-out the internals of the car.

M-Sport plan for him to rejoin instead on Sunday.