Seska’s crew (“M-Sport Ford“) completed the 30.58-kilometer high-speed stage with the best time, eight seconds ahead of the Hyundai pilot Belgian Thierry Neville and 9.6 seconds ahead of the Japanese Takamoto Katsu (Toyota Gazoo).
“The stage was very difficult. There were places where it seemed that you could push the speed, but it was not easy,” Cesk said in the broadcast of the rally on the TV channel “Go3 Sport 2”, emphasizing the difficult conditions in this rally and the role of the luck factor.
Both Estonian Ota Tenak (“Hyundai”) and Finnish Sami Pajari (“Toyota Gazoo”) crews had to change the tire in this stage, but the previous stage leader Furmo (“Hyundai”) chose the wrong route due to dust, thus losing about ten seconds.
After 13 speed stages, Sesk is ahead of Furmo by 22.1 seconds and Neville by 50.3 seconds, but the fourth-placed Kacuta is more than a minute and 25 seconds behind Sesk. Tenak is one minute and 35 seconds behind Seska in fifth place.
Championship contenders French Sebastien Ogier (Toyota Gazoo) and his teammate Elphin Evans from Great Britain are sixth and ninth respectively.
In previous Friday stages, Seska’s crew took third place and finished second three times.
Friday’s last stage will start at 15.05.
It has already been reported that on Wednesday Seska’s crew won three stages, becoming the leader of the WRC stage for the first time in history after the second stage. In the fourth stage, the Latvian crew entered a side road in the first section, as a result of which they lost about six seconds, but in the sixth stage, after a flat right rear tire, they took ninth place, falling to third place in the overall standings.
On Saturday, the speed stages will start at 7.35.
Over the course of four days, the rally crews will perform 17 stages with a length of 319.44 kilometers. 41 crews have confirmed their participation in the Saudi Arabian rally, 12 of which start with cars of the leading class “Rally1”.
Seska’s crew, which is competing in this WRC season with the “Ford Puma Rally1” car prepared by the “M-Sport Ford” team, is participating in its seventh stage this season. The Latvian crew finished the race in sixth place in the Swedish rally, took 15th place in the Portuguese and Greek rallies, retired from the Sardinian rally after an accident, but finished in eighth place in the Estonian rally and Finnish rally.
In the middle of June, the Latvian crew won the fourth stage of the European Rally Championship (ERC) in Poland.
After 13 stages of the WRC, British pilot Elfin Evans took the first place in the overall standings with 272 points, French pilot Sébastien Ogier had collected 269, Finnish Kalle Rovanpere – 248, and Estonian Ots Tenak – 213 points.
The 16 points won in six stages allowed Seska to take 12th place.
Seska’s crew made their WRC debut last season, competing in three stages. The Latvians were fifth in the Polish Rally, seventh in the first stage of the WRC in Latvia in July, losing a place on the podium only in the last stage, but in the Chile Rally, after the accident, the competition was continued for training purposes.
The 2025 WRC season has 14 rounds.
Belgian Thierry Neville became the champion in the previous season.
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