Kalle Rovanperä recorded his first stage win of Arctic Rally Finland on the seventh special stage to take a small chunk out of Ott Tänak’s rally lead.
Rovanperä revealed he crossed new and old tires on his Toyota Yaris WRC (meaning one side of the front and rear was new and the other wasn’t) and stormed to victory on Kaihuavaara.
He nibbled 1.7 seconds out of Tänak’s lead but still lies 23.3s behind in second place, and wasn’t sure if his strategy was going to pay off in the long run.
“Maybe the other guys are more clever and are saving the tires, I don’t know,” he said.
“We took a small gamble with the tires and put them on cross.”
Tänak, who was second quickest, countered: “I was worried about the final stage, this one I used the worse tires just to get through and I think the last one will be really important now.”
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
Thierry Neuville, who complained of communication issues between himself and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe this morning but has now risen to third place, told stage-end reporters that his “communication is working better” although he feels improvements can still be made.
He was fourth fastest on SS7, 1.2s slower than Elfyn Evans to remain third but 5.0s adrift of Rovanperä’s Toyota.
Despite winning a stage on Saturday morning, Evans has been a relatively dormant player this weekend but he has begun to close up on Craig Breen who again struggled to match the ultimate pace.
Just 5.1s now separates the Hyundai and Toyota in fourth and fifth, and WRC returnee Breen confessed to struggling to manage his tires.
“What do you expect? I’m trying my best,” he said rather tersely when the stage-end reporter asked him how he had managed his tires on his first WRC event since last September’s Rally Estonia.
“It’s tricky I have no reference to know how to manage it, how to do things properly so I’m trying my best.”
Photo: McKlein Image Database
Sébastien Ogier trailed Oliver Solberg by 7.9s ahead of SS7 but has now moved up into sixth, profiting from an error by 2C Competition debutant Solberg.
The 19-year-old overshot a junction which cost him around 10s, as proved by his stage time that was 11.5s down on Ogier’s. It puts Solberg 3.6s behind the seven-time World Rally Champion with one stage left to run on Saturday.
“I was quite angry but OK it’s good learning,” Solberg admitted. “It was a shame that I spun but it’s like it is.”
Ogier could be well positioned to extend his advantage too, after admitting he “didn’t really push in this one” in a bid “to save my tires for the last one”.
Takamoto Katsuta has closed in on Solberg too after dropping behind him on the previous stage. The Toyota junior beat the Swede by 8.4s on SS7 to lie a slender 3.4s back on the leaderboard in eighth position.
Photo: M-Sport World Rally Team
M-Sport’s two works Ford Fiesta WRCs are ninth and 10th with Teemu Suninen heading Gus Greensmith. But the Finn has lost touch a little with the trio ahead of him, losing another 6.8s to Katsuta. He’s now 14.4s behind.
“The conditions are really tricky, clean line but a lot of messy snow on the outside of the line,” Suninen said. “It’s quite tricky to go flat out but still save the tires.”
Janne Tuohino became the road sweeper as 2C’s Pierre-Louis Loubet was forced to retire for the day following his issues, which were confirmed to be turbo-related, on the previous stage.
In WRC2, it’s seven out of seven for Esapekka Lappi who now heads Andreas Mikkelsen by 49.2s overall – setting a time that was just 1.3s slower than Gus Greensmith’s Ford Fiesta WRC on SS7.
Nikolay Gryazin is a distant third, running into a snowbank and having to back off for the last section of the stage with his Volkswagen’s engine at risk of overheating once filled with snow.
Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
Eyvind Brynildsen finds himself a comfortable fourth overall now after Adrien Fourmaux – who he was locked in an intense battle with – got his Ford Fiesta Rally2 stuck in a snowbank of the previous stage.
SS7 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 9m08.8s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +1.7s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +3.8s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +5.0s
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +7.9s
6 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +9.5s
Leading positions after SS7
1 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) 1h30m35.8s
2 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) +23.3s
3 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +38.2s
4 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +50.6s
5 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +55.7s
6 Ogier/Ingrassia (Toyota) +1m16.8s
7 Oliver Solberg/Seb Marshall (Hyundai) +1m20.4s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +1m23.8s
9 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +1m38.2s
10 Gus Greensmith/Elliott Edmondson (M-Sport Ford) +2m36.5s
