Sébastien Ogier heads into the final day of Rally Islas Canarias with just a 3.8-second advantage over Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg, as Jon Armstrong flirted with disaster on the day’s final stage.
Ogier had led the fifth round of this year’s world championship since Friday morning, but hasn’t been able to relax with his young team-mate mirroring his every move.
The reigning champion started Saturday 8.9 seconds ahead of the Monte Carlo winner, but lost 3.6s over the course of the morning to carry a 5.3s advantage into the afternoon.
Gaps were extremely close on SS12 with Solberg nicking a tenth of a second from Ogier, before the pair incredibly set an equal time on SS13.
That gave Ogier a 5.2s advantage ahead of the event’s longest stage, but when his tires began to overheat Solberg just sent it, and nicked 1.4s from Ogier to slash the lead down to under four seconds.
“I had a horrible stage but eventually when the tires went I thought ‘ah I’ll got for it’,” said Solberg. “Africa was bad luck and Croatia was my fault, so I won’t panic to take him, but let’s see. It’s four long stages to go, and anything is possible.”
Ogier countered: “I’m excited for tomorrow – finally some new stages, it’ll be nice to drive. That’s the reason we are here: if we don’t enjoy this fight, we might as well stay at home.”
M-Sport driver Armstrong isn’t in a big fight, though, and shot off the road on a tightening right-hander before a bridge on SS14.
The Irishman was too hot into the corner but did well to avoid a tire stack protecting an Armco barrier, sparing his Puma Rally1 from rally-ending damage.
Nearby spectators helped get the car back on the road so that Armstrong could complete the day, albeit losing two minutes and his 10th position overall.
“Where he’s been in at… bwoah, he’s lucky,” said team-mate Josh McErlean, who finished the stage just seconds after Armstrong.
“It’s a shame because we’ve been having a good race all weekend.”
McErlean is ninth, now ahead of runaway WRC2 leader Yohan Rossel (Lancia).
Further up the standings, Elfyn Evans holds onto third place but lost touch with his two team-mates at the head of the field.
He starts Sunday 21.9s off the lead but comfortably half a minute clear of Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta, who are separated in fourth and fifth by 10.4s.
Adrien Fourmaux grabbed sixth place from Hyundai team-mate Dani Sordo on Saturday’s first stage and extended his advantage to 31.8s by the end of the leg. Sordo meanwhile is just two seconds ahead of the other i20 N Rally1, driven by Thierry Neuville.
