An adjustment to notional times for the first special stage of Rally Chile has given Elfyn Evans the overnight lead instead of Ott Tänak.
Tänak had ended Friday’s leg 0.4 seconds ahead of Evans’ Toyota after overtaking the Welshman on Friday afternoon, but he will now start Saturday’s leg 3.0s behind following an organizers’ decision.
Only Thierry Neuville, Tänak and Sébastien Ogier managed to set a competitive time on SS1 Pulperia, as the stage was cancelled after Ogier’s run due to spectator safety issues.
The remaining seven Rally1 drivers – Evans, Adrien Fourmaux, Kalle Rovanperä, Sami Pajari, Esapekka Lappi, Grégoire Munster and Mārtiņš Sesks – were all given the same stage time as Neuville, which was 9.1s off Ogier’s benchmark.
Tänak has dropped to second place with the timing tweaks but is only three seconds adrift heading to Saturday
But a bulletin that confirmed those notionals came with the caveat that times could change depending on the drivers’ performances on SS4 – the repeat pass of the test.
Evans, Fourmaux and Pajari all had their times changed, but crucially Evans’ new SS1 time was two seconds faster than Tänak’s effort, rather than 1.4s slower.
That created a swing of 3.4s and has thus moved Evans into the lead by 3.0s.
The rest of the leaderboard remains unchanged, but the gaps have naturally widened. Kalle Rovanperä is now 10.1s down in third, but things are still tight behind with Pajari and Munster just 2.1s and 3.6s further back respectively.
