(Belga) Theory Newville (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) is still ahead in the eighth round of the WRC World Championships on Saturday after the second day. Drivers will travel to the Spa-Franco Champ to complete the program with four features of the Sunday program. Thierry Newville is ten seconds ahead of his closest followers.

The leader, who is 6.8 seconds ahead of Craig Breen after the first loop on Saturday morning, recorded his fourth fastest time on the second pass of the rally’s longest rally at 25.86km in Newville, and lost 1.8 seconds on his Irish team on Saturday afternoon. The second part of the Dickibus Special allowed Newville to score its second scratch, the sixth in the rally, to score 1.6 seconds from the Irishman. At SS15, Thierry Newville made a “clean” special, finishing third, and Sebastian Ogier had to concede 2.2, but managed his lead in the general classification. Thierry Newville still saw the end of the day very quickly to set a new ‘scratch’ time, with Irishman Craig Breen (Hyundai) surpassing Welshman Elf at 42.4 in the 7th provisional rating of his rally at 10.1. (Toyota). Finland’s Culle Rowanpera (Toyota) is 4th in 45.7, ahead of Frenchman Sebastian Ogier (Toyota) 46.7. On Sunday, drivers will leave Ypres for another 300 km on the Spa-Francochamps circuit. The pilots will pass through Stavlot and Malm twice, which include parts of the circuit. Powerstage competes on this track, the last feature of the rally, which is considered to be the first WRC round in history. In the drivers’ world rankings, the German speaker has 96 points, 15 less than Elfin Evans and 52, second only to world champion Sebastian Ogier. (Belga)