Sébastien Ogier has responded to Kalle Rovanperä’s Sunday morning charge on Safari Rally Kenya, extending his lead back up to 17.2 seconds despite losing his tailgate.
Ogier led Rovanperä by a seemingly strong 16.7s heading into Sunday’s final day of six stages, but his advantage was halved on the day’s opener as Rovanperä threw caution to the wind.
Ogier appeared caught out – and perhaps even annoyed – by his team-mate’s attack and had no choice but to respond on SS15.
He was an impressive 2.9s faster than Rovanperä through the opening split, but then in a slow corner he ran slightly wide and clipped the Kenyan scenery.
That ripped the tailgate clean off Ogier’s Toyota, but with dust seeping into the cockpit the eight-time world champion kept the hammer down and destroyed Rovanperä by a massive 8.6s.
That means Ogier has taken back more time than he lost (8.1s) on the previous test.
“In the fesh-fesh I clipped a little bit the tree and I’m very surprised to be honest, didn’t expect that,” Ogier said, examining his missing tailgate.
Toyota’s formation 1-2-3-4 finish remains intact though, and Elfyn Evans increased his advantage over fourth-placed Takamoto Katsuta to 21.2s.
Katsuta didn’t appear fully content though, crossing the line of the stage and looking down at his dash display with his hand momentarily raised in the air.
After encountering yet more mechanical issues on the previous stage, Esapekka Lappi managed to make the start of SS15 but completed it at a very sedate pace – dropping over six minutes to his team-mate Thierry Neuville.
Neuville looks set to gain another position overall though and climb to eighth, as WRC2 leader Kajetan Kajetanowicz backed off greatly – aiming simply to protect his 10-minute lead in the category.
