Esapekka Lappi has a 0.1 second lead over Andreas Mikkelsen after the first stage of Rally Mexico, which was ended early after a jump was damaged.
Drivers including championship frontrunners Sebastien Ogier, Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville didn’t start the 1km Street Stage in León after a sharp jump near the end of the stage caused several drivers including Lappi and WRC2 PRO’s Lukasz Pieniążek to have large nose-first landings.
The organisers decided before defending champion Ogier was to run that the jump was deemed unsafe, meaning the trio were all given the same base time as Kris Meeke, who had significantly slowed down during his run to prevent any damage to his Toyota GAZOO Racing Yaris WRC.
Photo Credit: Jaanus Ree/RedBull Content Pool
The cancellation of the stage means a five-way tie for third on the leaderboard, with Elfyn Evans also being affected.
Teemu Suninen and Dani Sordo share ninth, 1.5 seconds down on leader Lappi with an unhappy Jari-Matti Latvala completing the top 10. Alberto Heller leads Pieniążek in WRC2 going into Friday’s eight stages.
Rally Mexico continues this weekend.
