Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux both punctured on the same stage of Rally Finland, meaning it’s now a Toyota 1-2-3-4-5.
Neuville and Fourmaux had been running second and third overall, split by just 1.5 seconds after 15 of the event’s 20 stages.
However both Hyundai drivers lost over 1m30s on SS16 as they each collected a front-right puncture.
Neuville therefore is down to sixth with Fourmaux seventh.
Fourmaux arrived at the stage-end first: “You know sometimes you hit something or you cut too much and you know why, but when it’s on a really clean stage, no rock everything is clean, I don’t understand what happened,” he said.
“I have no words – I don’t know what to say.”
Neuville, who has at times been critical of tire supplier Hankook this season, added: “I was on the middle of the road. I don’t know, it wasn’t even an impact. Puncture number 13 or 14 this year…”
Out front, Kalle Rovanperä’s lead is now a strong 29.0s over Takamoto Katsuta, with Sébastien Ogier up to third.
Elfyn Evans is 2.4s behind Ogier, with a 6.4s advantage over Pajari who won the stage.
