Sébastien Ogier mounted a rebuttal to title rival Elfyn Evans’ Saturday morning charge on Rally Japan, winning the re-runs of the Ena and Obara stages to hold a 6.5-second advantage heading into the final day.
Evans had trimmed his team-mate’s rally lead on Saturday’s first three stages and then made further inroads on the second pass of Mt. Kasagi, cutting Ogier’s lead to a slim 1.4s.
But the eight-time world champion put his foot down on the stages where route note crews were out for the second pass; he’d been cautious over the polluted sections in the morning and Mt. Kasagi had no route note crews due to time restrictions.
“At least we had an OK afternoon but I could have done better this morning,” admitted Ogier.
Evans was close to Ogier's times in the afternoon but unable to make further inroads
Evans was lucky to escape the penultimate stage with minimal time loss after an impact with a kerb on his left-rear wheel, which risked debeading the tire entirely.
Takamoto Katsuta had been in the mix with his Toyota teammates to contend for victory until he smashed through plastic barriers and broke the power steering on his GR Yaris Rally1.
Despite that ending any hopes of silverware, he and co-driver Aaron Johnston stopped several times on the road section to effect repairs, with Johnston at one point siphoning engine oil by mouth out of his car’s motor and using it to fill the patched-up power steering system.
Katsuta still completed all of Saturday’s stages but his only reward was the honor of having tried everything possible to keep running; he had arrived 34 minutes late to the start of SS12, leading to automatic retirement from the day’s action.
Katsuta’s demise promoted a rapid Adrien Fourmaux to third place. While he’d been rapid on Saturday morning with two stage wins, the lead Toyotas had the measure of Fourmaux on the afternoon loop, leaving him 17.1s behind Evans by day’s end.
Sami Pajari had started Saturday only 0.3s behind Fourmaux but ended it 21.8s adrift of the lead Hyundai. An impact with a bank on SS9 damaged his exhaust, making the cabin of his GR Yaris Rally1 very loud.
“I am having some [headaches],” said Pajari, who was relying mostly on memory to drive the stages as he struggled to hear co-driver Marko Salminen over the now-amplified engine noise.
Pajari's afternoon was an unpleasant one with an unmuffled exhaust reverberating around the cabin of his GR Yaris
Ott Tänak is in no man’s land, 1m49.1s behind Pajari but with a massive 2m05.1s in hand over the sole remaining M-Sport runner, Grégoire Munster.
Kalle Rovanperä’s key mission for Saturday was accomplished, climbing 10 places from 17th to 7th. He leapfrogged the full WRC2 field and was aided by Thierry Neuville’s retirement with a transmission fault and Katsuta’s incident.
Oliver Solberg tops the Rally2 runners by over a minute but isn’t registered for points, so Alejandro Cachón leads the WRC2 category by 26.9s over Nikolay Gryazin.
Gus Greensmith had also been in the mix near the front but retired with brake issues a few metres into Saturday’s second stage. Jan Solans completes the class podium and is only 5.2s behind Gryazin.
