Spectator control issues are affecting proceedings at Rally Poland, with both stages six and seven affected by red-flag stoppages and the latter canceled entirely.
The second pass of the Wieliczki test, which was canceled on Friday morning after only three cars had passed through, was stopped again during its afternoon re-run.
However, after a brief delay action resumed, with Andreas Mikkelsen issued a notional time due to encountering the red flag mid-stage.
Mārtiņš Sesks was the unlucky driver to be waiting on the start line of Wieliczki when the red flag fell, his car losing brake and tire temperature while waiting and ultimately contributing to a 5.5-second loss that dropped him to fourth place.
Spectator control is proving to be a challenge. SS7 was the fourth time in two days a stage has been interrupted
Kalle Rovanperä had briefly retaken the lead on stage five but lost it again to Mikkelsen on stage six; with the morning pass of the test being canceled, Rovanperä was back to struggling with imperfect pace notes.
“It was not easy to match the guys who did the stage in the morning,” said Rovanperä. “It was a clean run with our s*** pace notes. I could not do more.”
Elfyn Evans took second place from Rovanperä on stage six by only 0.1s, with the reigning world champion dropping to third, 4.1s ahead of Sesks.
There was further disruption on the second pass of Olecko; after championship leader Thierry Neuville, Evans and M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux had completed the stage it was red-flagged, with Takamoto Katsuta held at the start.
Not long after a safety car had entered the stage it was then called off entirely, with notional times to be issued for the rest of the field.
