Sami Pajari is on course for back-to-back World Rally Championship victories, inheriting the lead of Rally Finland after Sébastien Ogier crashed.
Ogier led the event from Friday’s opening stage and was in complete control, holding a 20.9-second advantage over Pajari after SS16 of 20.
However the world champion went off the road less than a mile from the end of SS17, rolling his Toyota into the trees.
He and co-driver Julien Ingrassia got out of the car unaided, but have been taken to hospital for further checks.
Pajari moved into the lead as a result of Ogier’s exit ahead of Toyota team-mate Oliver Solberg, completing the final stage of the day to lead by 46.4s overnight.
The 24-year-old is therefore just two stages away from a home WRC victory, and the second of his career, after winning Rally Estonia two weeks ago.
“Obviously there’s two long stages to do, so anything can still happen,” Pajari said.
Asked how it was to be leading his home rally, Pajari quipped: “I can’t hear you…”
Solberg, who started Saturday fourth, added: “It was very scary to see what happened to Séb and Julien, I really, really hope they are OK because that was nasty. We’ve just tried to hold position and wait for things to happen, and unfortunately it kind of has.”
Elfyn Evans is third after Saturday’s stages, starting the final test of the day level on time with Hyundai rival Adrien Fourmaux.
Fourmaux gave it his all on SS18 but feared it wouldn’t be enough, and he was proved correct as Evans won the stage and beat Fourmaux by 3.8s to establish the same advantage overall.
Evans had been second behind Ogier earlier in the day before rolling on SS14, and losing close to two minutes when he got his GR Yaris Rally1 stuck in a ditch following his rollover.
“I have to say a huge thanks to the guys for lunchtime,” Evans said. “Huge effort after my mistake this morning, thanks to them to allow me to keep driving. And of course even more importantly, we’re hoping for the best for Séb and Julien. Our thoughts are with them and I hope they recover well.”
Takamoto Katusta completes the top five, 2m54.5s off Pajari’s lead, with Thierry Neuville – who admitted he “wasn’t feeling well all day” – stealing Josh McErlean’s sixth place on the final stage of the day by 1.5s.
Jari-Matti Latvala leads the Rally2 category, but it’s fellow Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 driver Teemu Suninen who tops WRC2 by 3.1s over Robert Virves. Virves had been ahead by over half a minute, but lost a lot of time on SS17.
“I think we deserve from the pace side to lead, but we had some issues yesterday,” Suninen said. “Today we were able to show really good performance, but this isn’t the way I want the championship deciders to go, having some technical car issues. But we can be happy we’ve had a really great fight and for sure it will continue tomorrow.”
