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Summary Foul weather conditions lead to an early end to Friday's racing in the Portugal Rally.
The three remaining stages of the Rally of Portugal were cancelled on Friday (March 30) due to safety concerns after heavy rain caused a series of problems during the morning session.Ford drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg crashed on consecutive stages while leading the rally but the teams motorsport manager Gerard Quinn told the World Rally Championship website (www.wrc.com) he hoped both would be able to restart on Saturday.Overnight leader Latvala went off the road after a rock broke his suspension and got stuck in a ditch on stage five as heavy rain and patches of fog made driving treacherous.Unable to continue, the overall lead went to team mate Solberg only for the Norwegian to suffer a similar fate on the next stage.Mikko Hirvonen, who moved to Citroen for this season, held a lead of 36.3 seconds over M-Sport Ford driver Evgeny Novikov after seven stages.Hirvonen, who has yet to win for Citroen, could take the lead in the drivers championship after eight-times world champion Sebastien Loeb retired from the rally on Thursday following a crash on the second stage.Another casualty of the conditions was M-Sports Estonian Ott Tanak, who slid off and hit a rock as he was attempting to drive back onto the road up a steep bank.The race is scheduled to restart on Saturday and ends on Sunday.
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