Thierry Neuville has deposed team-mate Ott Tänak of second place after five stages on Rally Portugal, but Hyundai’s podium lockout continues with Dani Sordo leading the way and once again setting the pace.
Neuville trailed Tänak by 2.4 seconds after the first stage of Friday afternoon, having nicked 0.9s from the 2019 World Rally Champion on SS4.
But Tänak looked to have an answer to Neuville’s response, setting a pace as much as three seconds faster than his team-mate on the early SS5 splits; only for the Estonian to give that time up and more by the end of the stage.
Stopping the clocks 3.8s slower than Neuville, Tänak is now 1.4s behind the Belgian and 12s in arrears of rally leader Sordo.
Sordo’s lead has now stretched into double figures, standing at 10.6s over Neuville after his third stage win of the weekend.
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
The three squabbling Toyotas in fourth, fifth and sixth are now covered by just 3.3s as both Takamoto Katsuta and Kalle Rovanperä made inroads on Elfyn Evans.
Evans had held fourth spot before Góis but lost it to Katsuta by 0.6s, while Rovanperä – who dropped just 0.9s to the stage winner Sordo and stole 0.3s from Katsuta on the test – has closed to 2.7s behind the Welshman in sixth place.
All three remain in touch with the leading Hyundais too; Rovanperä only 25s adrift of the rally lead.
For the first time this weekend, Sébastien Ogier got the better of one of his Toyota colleagues on SS5 – edging Evans by a slender 0.2s. That time was enough to relieve M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux of seventh place in the overall classification.
Gus Greensmith is 27.7s behind his Ford Fiesta WRC-driving team-mate but beat him for the fourth time in five attempts on SS5, this time by 3.5s.
The lead of WRC2 changed again on SS5 as Esapekka Lappi moved back past his Movisport team-mate Nikolay Gryazin, despite not going fastest on the stage.
That honor went to his former M-Sport team-mate Teemu Suninen who threaded his Ford Fiesta Rally2 through Góis 3.1s quicker than Lappi could manage in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Gryazin lost 4.6s to Lappi and 7.7s to Suninen, and now trails Lappi by 3.9s overall and is ahead of Suninen by just 0.1s.
SS5 times
1 Dani Sordo/Borja Rozada (Hyundai) 13m04.4s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +0.6s
3 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +0.9s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +1.2ss
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +3.6s
6 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +3.8s
Leading positions after SS5
1 Sordo/Rozada 56m07.5s
2 Neuville/Wydaeghe +10.6s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +12.0s
4 Katsuta/Barritt +21.7s
5 Evans/Martin +22.3s
6 Rovanperä/Halttunen +25.0s
7 Ogier/Ingrassia (Toyota) +36.8s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Renaud Jamoul +40.0s
9 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +1m07.7s
10 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Volkswagen) +2m40.3s
