Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä are breaking clear at the head of Central European Rally, while both Thierry Neuville and Grégoire Munster made mistakes.
After two short stages on Thursday, Ogier led Rovanperä by just 1.6 seconds with Adrien Fourmaux nestled another 2.3s adrift.
Friday’s opening loop comprised stages in Germany, Austria and Czechia, with world champion Neuville setting the pace in a Hyundai 1-2-3 on Granit und Wald.
But of more importance was Ogier’s time relative to Rovanperä, as the eight-time champion extended his lead to 2.7s.
However, crossing the border into Austria for the Böhmerwald test, it was Rovanperä who was boss – beating Ogier (who had a messy final corner in particular) by an impressive 2.1s to trim the Frenchman’s lead down to a slender 0.6s.
Col de Jan in Czechia concluded the morning, and had been picked out by the drivers as the key stage of the rally due to its bumpy, narrow and relentless nature.
Times between drivers had been tipped to widen, and so it proved. Coupling the benefit of first on the road to an inspired push, Ogier took 3.3s from Rovanperä to build his lead back up to 3.9s.
The two Toyota drivers were however in a league of their own – third-fastest Elfyn Evans was 12.9s off the pace.
Ogier said: “This was the challenging one, and it was in places. Not easy to be on the limit everywhere but OK. In some places I could have done more but in these kind of conditions it’s nearly impossible to be on the limit everywhere.”
Rovanperä added: “Like we expected this one would be tricky, and after every car it is trickier in places. I could’ve been much more brave in the forest, so maybe a bit too careful in the beginning.”
Fourmaux had been just 3.2s off the lead after SS4, but posted an SS5 time that was 26.5s slower than Ogier to suddenly find himself down in sixth – mainly due to the change in road conditions.
But his Hyundai team-mate suffered more in Col de Jan, as Neuville punctured a rear-right tire after getting his line wrong over a jump and hitting the corresponding bank. Earlier in the stage he’d also run wide into a bank which also caused some front-right damage to his i20.
The Belgian lost over a minute on the stage and fell from fifth to eighth.
“We came over a jump, we landed a little bit on the right side and something punctured a tire,” Neuville explained. “There were plenty of surprises, I lost a couple of times the car in the mud.”
M-Sport’s Munster was the biggest loser however, as he made the same mistake as Neuville but with more dire consequences. His M-Sport Ford Puma almost rolled as he made contact with the bank, and suspension damage – as well as a puncture – forced him to stop and retire.
With all that drama, Ott Tänak moved up to third place despite feeling far from happy with his i20 N Rally1.
“In the slippy part the car is so stiff and so edgy and on the Tarmac it’s so soft like a boat… incredible, yeah,” he said.
Tänak is 1.4s ahead of Evans, but the Welshman and his Toyota team have appealed a five-second penalty he was given for moving a chicane on SS1 yesterday.
Takamoto Katsuta is fifth, 2.7s adrift of Evans with Fourmaux another 2.9s adrift. Sami Pajari had been ahead of Katsuta but suffered with the road cleaning effect, so now finds himself seventh and 37.0s off the lead.
Josh McErlean is the last of the Rally1 cars, 21.1s down on Neuville as he clipped a rock and thought he’d got a puncture, but instead bent a steering arm.
Alejandro Cachón has been the class of the WRC2 field so far in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, as he heads Filip Mareš by 11.6s. Léo Rossel’s Citroën is third.
WRC2 champion Oliver Solberg is not in the points battle, but is currently leading the class – 6.3s ahead of Cachón.
