page_title: 2018 Rally Sweden
section_title: Saturday
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 Rally Sweden / Report / Saturday
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Hayden Paddon i Sebastian Marshall podczas Rajdu Szwecji 2018
context_page_description: The 2018 Rally Sweden was a motor racing event for rally cars that was held over four days between 15 and 18 February 2018. It marked the sixty-sixth running of Rally Sweden, and was the second round of the 2018 World Rally Championship and its support categories, the WRC-2 and WRC-3 championships. It was also the first round of the Junior World Rally Championship. The event, which was based in the town of Torsby in Värmland County, was contested over nineteen special stages totalling a competitive distance of 314.25 km.
  Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila were the defending rally winners. Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul were the rally winners. Their team, Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, were the manufacturers' winners. The Belgian also became only the third non-Nordic driver to win the event after the nine-time world champion, Sébastien Loeb, and the defending world champion, Sébastien Ogier. The Tommi Mäkinen Racing crew of Takamoto Katsuta and Marko Salminen won the World Rally Championship-2 category in a Ford Fiesta R5, while Swedish crew Denis Rådström and Johan Johansson won the World Rally Championship-3 and Junior World Rally Championship.
context_section_description: Thierry Neuville was the rally leader, but the gap between him and his main opponent was not big enough, especially for the Citroën driver, Craig Breen, who was eager to claim his first WRC victory. The Irish driver have once narrowed the gap to less than five seconds. However, the Hyundai star set four fastest stage times to build a 22.7-second lead, though he suffered a paddle shift gearchange system issue at the opening stage. Teammate Andreas Mikkelsen finished third after a spin today which made him dropped from second to fourth place, 9.3 seconds behind Breen. Hayden Paddon's car set-up was unsuited to this morning's forest roads. The New Zealander stuck on the inside of a hairpin in the final stage, which made him lost some time. He ended the day 16.6 seconds behind Mikkelsen. Mads Østberg changed his C3's settings to improve his car's balance but the switches affected his confidence and he reversed the adjustments. There was also an accident in SS13. Kris Meeke nosed into a snow bank but lost engine power when he regained the road. He stopped to clean snow from his Citroën's cooling system and as Ott Tänak tried to overtake in a narrow section, the two cars collided and the Estonian's Toyota Yaris bounced into a ditch. That ended with the Briton's retirement and made five-time world champion Sébastien Ogier finally get into the top ten.
caption: Hayden Paddon and Sebastian Marshall on the road.
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