Esapekka Lappi stormed past Dani Sordo and into the lead of the Monza Rally after choosing to fit snow tires to his M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC for Friday morning’s second stage, as the rest of the Rally1 contenders selected wet compounds.
Andreas Mikkelsen is an incredible third in his Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo, losing just 10s to stage winner Lappi to lie 0.2s ahead of Sébastien Ogier’s Toyota Yaris WRC on the overall leaderboard.
Conditions were even worse than on the first pass for the repeat run of the Scorpion test as the rain continued to lash down, with the leading times some 10 seconds slower than they were on SS2. Six-time world champion Ogier described them as “like Rally GB with slick tires, so slippy”.
Lappi’s decision to run the more extreme tire compound proved to be a masterstroke as he outpaced outgoing rally leader Dani Sordo by 7.9 seconds to assume a lead of 3.3s.
“A bit risky,” said Lappi of his tire choice. “We need to see how much it was wearing but it seems it was working.”
Sordo reckoned “it was much more difficult in some places” than the first time through Scorpion but he was still second fastest, 1.8s quicker than Thierry Neuville, who began his comeback from 13th spot after getting caught in a barbed-wire fence earlier on, climbing to ninth.
Ogier continues to hold third position but is now 22.4s shy of the lead after a compromised stage. He was affected by a severely misted up screen, which began to develop when he rejoined the famous Monza banking.
Dipping his Yaris WRC into a puddle, the windshield suddenly fogged up and, despite the efforts of Ogier and Julien Ingrassia to adjust the air vent, they were not able to cure the problem until much later on the stage.
Despite this, Ogier still managed to go faster than his chief rival Elfyn Evans by 0.8s to remain 4s up on his title rival.
World Rally Championship points leader Evans admitted it was “difficult to keep the car in a straight line” as he continued his steady approach. He was overhauled by Ott Tänak, who is now 2.9s ahead, but Evans actually kept hold of his fifth place because his Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä went backwards.
Rovanperä was third quickest on Scorpion 1 but lost 18.6s to the stage winner on the repeat pass, and was at a loss to explain why.
Neuville lurks 3.1s behind Rovanperä in ninth, with the pair separated by M-Sport WRC2 contender Adrien Fourmaux.
“Obviously after the surprise from the morning we have to push hard,” said Neuville. “I tried to do good but the conditions are very, very bad.
“Very bad, so it’s very easy to do a mistake. I had a good clean run but it’s not very enjoyable.”
Lappi may lead the rally, but that was the only positive for M-Sport as Gus Greensmith crashed out of 10th place after he clipped a gate post and Teemu Suninen’s engine problems continued.
M-Sport confirmed before SS3 that the issue wasn’t able to be resolved, and Suninen hemorrhaged 42.1s to his stage-winning team-mate and was pessimistic about his continued participation.
“We tried to do our best in the service let’s see if we can continue the rally,” he said. “The engine is broken.”
Ole Christian Veiby and Takamoto Katsuta both negotiated the stage safely but lie poles apart in the overall results, with Katsuta over 10 minutes down following his retirement on Thursday.
Veiby is eighth overall on his Rally1 debut, 5.3s behind Neuville but 13s up on Suninen.
Mikkelsen’s WRC3 lead is a comfortable 23.1s over title favorite Jari Huttunen, who sits just outside the top 10 overall. Mikkelsen’s team-mate Emil Lindholm is a creditable third, just 4.7s shy of Huttunen.
Fourmaux’s heroics have ensured he holds a 22.6s advantage at the head of WRC2 from Mads Østberg who, crucially, is 6.7s ahead of Pontus Tidemand in their battle for the WRC2 crown.
SS3 times
1 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) 9m56.8s
2 Sordo (Hyundai) +7.9s
3 Neuville (Hyundai) +9.7s
4 Mikkelsen (Skoda) +10s
5 Tanak (Hyundai) +13s
6 Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) +13.5s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) 23m31.1s
2 Sordo (Hyundai) +3.3s
3 Mikkelsen (Škoda) +22.2s
4 Ogier (Toyota) +22.4s
5 Tanak (Hyundai) +23.5s
6 Evans (Toyota) +26.4s
7 Rovanpera (Toyota) +31.6s
8 Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) +32.9s
9 Neuville (Hyundai) +34.7s
10 Veiby (2C Competition Hyundai) +40s
