Paris (AFP)

Frenchman Sébastien Ogier (Citroën) has "almost" said goodbye to the prospect of a 7th consecutive world title in 2019, losing more than 3 minutes to his rivals Ott Tänak (Toyota) and Belgium's Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) in the Rally of Catalonia Friday morning.

"My prospects did not look fantastic before the start, now it's even more complicated," responded Ogier, who suffered a power steering problem early in the second of three special stages in the program. morning.

"We have a very good chance of not scoring a lot of points this weekend, so I think we can almost say it's over," he said after he managed to pull him back his car to his mechanics for assistance scheduled for mid-day.

"It will not be easy to keep our motivation, what can we do this weekend?" Asks the one who is relegated to 3 min 36 sec of the Spanish leader Dani Sordo (Hyundai).

This waste of time is the business of Tänak who needs to score only two points more than the French this weekend, while not leaving Neuville to take over eleven units, to afford his first world title Sunday after the 17 specials.

To be crowned at the end of the Spanish race, the 32-year-old driver needs a thirty-point lead, not 31, despite the thirty points still to be awarded in Australia from 14 to 17 November.

In the event of an accounting tie at the end of the season, his greatest number of victories (six, against three in the French and two in the Belgian) guarantees him the first place among the drivers.

However, in the provisional ranking of the rally, Neuville is 2nd to 1 sec of Sordo and Tänak 3rd to 7 sec 5/10.

- Tänak: "still our work to do" -

"There is always the fight with Thierry which is no less important than the one with Seb," said the latter. "We have only finished three stages, there are still a lot of them, nobody can say that what happened to him (in Ogier) will not happen to anyone else, we still have our job to do."

Neuville, who is 41 points behind Tänak and 13 over Ogier in the drivers standings, still believes in his chances, even "small ones" by his own admission. "It will not be easy," said the Belgian driver Hyundai, "we have to continue like this morning and continue to believe it."

The second Frenchman Sébastien Loeb (Hyundai) is sixth at 11 sec 9/10.

A second pass on the same loop of three stages is scheduled for the afternoon.

The Rally of Catalonia, played around the seaside resort of Salou, along the Costa Daurada, south of Barcelona, ​​is the 13th and penultimate round of the 2019 World Rally Championship (WRC) season.

The only mixed race of the year, the Spanish round is run mainly on Friday and then on asphalt on Saturday and Sunday. The mechanics will have a more busy evening than usual Friday to prepare the cars for the next day.

In the constructors, it is also possible, although unlikely, that the title is played this weekend.

Hyundai is just eight points clear of Toyota, with a further 86 to go. It would be necessary that the Korean manufacturer takes this gap to 44 units to be crowned for the first time of its history in Catalonia.

© 2019 AFP