Mads Østberg has crashed out during SS3 in Portugal, after leading the standings.
The Norwegian went in to SS3 being around 3.9 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. He was running in the fastest group of drivers in the first three splits of the stage.
However, it all went wrong 13km into the stage. The M-Sport Ford driver took a left hander too aggressively, and rolled his car.
“Mads and Jonas roll on SS3 - too fast into a left-hander,” M-Sport tweeted, “Both are OK, but they will not restart today.”
M-Sport Ford thankfully confirmed that neither Østberg nor co-driver Jonas Andersson were injured in the incident, however will not be racing in the rest of the day.
"Mads was so fast, some stages it was not possible to follow him," Volkswagen WRC driver, Sébastien Ogier said "It's not a relief though, as Jari [Matti Latvala] and Dani [Sordo] are not far."
The accident has left Ogier in the positive. The Frenchman now leads, 4.4 seconds ahead of Dani Sordo - who has won three stages of the rally. The other Volkswagen driver, Jari-Matti Latvala is third, 11.5 seconds behind.
Østberg took to Facebook after his crash, uploading pictures of his wrecked Fiesta.
“This is what happens when you go for 5 in 4 blind corner," Østberg wrote on his Facebook page "You end up a bit off road!"
“Nothing more we can do today, feeling quite low right now...”
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