Sesks ends Friday fifth at Rally Finland, with two top-three stage times
Mārtiņš Sesks and co-driver Renārs Francis are fifth overall after Friday's stages at Rally Finland. The Latvian driver was second and third fastest in stages eight and nine.
Latvian driver Mārtiņš Sesks, with co-driver Renārs Francis, ended Friday at Rally Finland in fifth place overall. The event is the tenth round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) season. After the opening stage of the day, Sesks was tenth, but he moved up through the day.
In the eighth stage, the Latvian posted the second-fastest time, 2.1 seconds behind Sweden's Oliver Solberg, while beating overall leader Sébastien Ogier. In the ninth stage, Sesks was third, behind Adrien Fourmaux (+2.5 seconds) and Solberg (+0.2 seconds). The Latvian was extremely quick, while Takamoto Katsuta ahead of him struggled with a fogged windscreen, losing 2 minutes and 15 seconds to Sesks in a single stage. That allowed Sesks to climb to fifth.
Friday's action concluded with a 2.58-kilometre Harju street stage, which brought no changes to the standings. After the finish, Sesks admitted he made silly mistakes and needs to learn that stage better.
At the end of Friday, Ogier leads the rally, with Sesks 1 minute 4.9 seconds behind. Saturday features eight stages, starting at 8:01 local time, with the longest stage at 19.1 kilometres, run twice. The final two stages are set for Sunday. Finland marks round ten of 14 in the 2026 WRC season. Sesks is also scheduled to compete in Italy (October 1-4) and Saudi Arabia (November 11-14).
