World Rally Championship points leader Thierry Neuville has increased his lead on Rally Croatia during the Saturday morning loop, building a narrow margin over title rival Elfyn Evans.
Neuville and Evans had been tied on overall time after Friday’s action but Neuville slowly edged away, then really put the hammer down on the last stage of Saturday’s morning loop, Pećurkovo Brdo.
Across the short 5.6-mile stage 12, Neuville was 2.9s faster with a clinically precise drive, putting him 0.32 per kilometer faster than his rivals.
That helped Hyundai’s leading contender extend his advantage over Evans to 4.7s, while Sébastien Ogier in the second Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 is now 11.3s off the top spot.
Neuville put his late-loop performance down to tire management: “We kept good tires, we probably had better management over the loop and kept a bit more profile on the tires than the others – at least that’s what it looks like,” he said.
Ogier was partially hamstrung on the final test of Saturday morning by running a wet compound tire on the right rear of his Yaris; all the Rally1 crews had taken two spare wets having expected rain which failed to materialize.
Explaining why he had to fit a wet tire for a bone-dry stage, Ogier explained: “I had another one which was using the tread like usual, so I didn’t want to take the risk to get a puncture here. It cost me a bit of performance there for sure but we are here.”
Ott Tänak remains fourth overall and continues to pull away from M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux, despite an impact with a curb on SS10 damaging his right-rear wheel.
Faced with the choice of running a wonky wheel with a soft compound fitted or a new wet tire, Tänak chose the former. In the end, tire wear was a bigger problem than the wheel itself: “It’s been vibrating a bit but it’s more down to tire wear, they were really on the limit.”
The third Toyota of Takamoto Katsuta has continued to fall further adrift of Fourmaux, who is now 50.1s off the lead Ford Puma. Andreas Mikkelsen had his second junction overshoot of the rally on Pećurkovo Brdo and complained that he was “drifting” through the corners due to the lack of grip.
Forecasted rain not materializing was a disappointment for eight-placed Grégoire Munster. M-Sport’s rookie driver had hoped wet conditions would have provided him with an advantage, given he was first car on the road.
“I would have preferred some rain to benefit our road position a bit more with dirty cuts,” said Munster. “Not a lot [of mud and gravel] is coming out of the cut. There’s also a thin layer of dust we are cleaning a bit, it’s making it very slippery.”
Nikolay Gryazin’s WRC2 lead has been strengthened by drama for Citroën team-mate Yohan Rossel.
A rock hidden on the inside of a corner cut caught out several drivers, Rossel included. In the 2021 WRC3 champion’s case, the front-left puncture caused by hitting it cost him 38.7s, handing Gryazin a healthy one-minute advantage over his title rival.
Despite the time loss Rossel kept second place, as Gus Greensmith suffered exactly the same fate. Instead, Sami Pajari, who like Greensmith isn’t nominated for WRC2 points this weekend, has inherited third place, and is only 5.2 adrift of Rossel.
Greensmith, like the Rally1 drivers, had taken two wets as his spare tires for the Saturday morning loop. That became a problem when he suffered two slow punctures, so for the last two stages, he was spectacularly drifting sideways through corners due to his tires overheating on the bone-dry roads.
Sixth-placed Nicolas Ciamin appeared to hit the same rock as Rossel and Greensmith had on Pećurkovo Brdo but the Hyundai driver miraculously avoided a puncture, despite it taking off a chunk of his wheel rim.
Ciamin’s explanation suggested the rock would have been a surprise to everyone: “I didn’t see anything in recce, our gravel crew didn’t see anything. It was a big impact so I was a bit scared after that.”
