Ott Tänak has responded to Thierry Neuville’s Rally Portugal charge to win his second stage of the weekend.
Dani Sordo enjoyed a 10.6s lead over Hyundai team-mate Neuville ahead of SS6, but the Spaniard and new co-driver Borja Rozada could only manage the fourth-best time on Arganil to have his lead trimmed to 8.2s.
Sordo however was worried about “something really weird” which happened to two of his tires, meaning he “just had to drive slow” to protect his remaining covers.
It means that just 9.3s cover all three leading Hyundais now as Tänak stole back 0.3s from Neuville to trail the Belgian by 1.1s in third.
Tänak did however reveal that he was carrying a punctured tire on the previous test which would explain how he managed to squander a three-second advantage on the SS4 splits to lose 3.8s and second spot by the end.
It also forces Tänak to be a bit more conservative for the remaining stages of the day as he has now lost a usable tire from his package of four hard and two soft compound Pirellis.
Neuville meanwhile was content with his performance as second car on the road.
“I’m not sure I can go much faster because then I think I slide too much and I tried to be efficient, but it’s cleaning in there,” he said. “We felt we had no traction because there is no clean line.”
Having lost his fourth position to Takamoto Katsuta on the previous test, Elfyn Evans has responded to steal the place back again on SS6; now lying 3.6s ahead of his fellow Toyota driver.
But the three-time rally winner wasn’t entirely content. Asked what he could improve, Evans said: “Loads, loads! It’s not easy out there.
“It’s not issues really it’s just feeling completely at one [with the car],” he added. “Let’s say it’s not fitting like a glove just at the moment.”
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
Katsuta felt the fast nature of Arganil was “not so nice for me and my driving so I need to find some improvements” as he slipped into the clutches of Rovanperä who lurks just 1.3s behind.
But Rovanperä wasn’t happy with his performance on SS6 either.
“It was pretty s*** to be honest,” he commented. “We have an issue with the tire so we had to use one soft tire at the rear and for sure in these conditions it was not good.”
The fourth and final of the Yaris WRCs belongs to championship leader Sébastien Ogier in seventh place. Ogier’s mission is to minimise his time loss throughout the rest of the day so that he isn’t faced with too early a place on the road on Saturday as well.
“So far I don’t think I’ve done a bad day, I try. It was unfortunately expected to have difficulties. It will be nice to have some cars in front [on the road] tomorrow otherwise it will be a very long weekend for us.”
Ogier has at least started to pull clear from the two M-Sport Fords behind him; eighth-placed Adrien Fourmaux now exactly 10s behind Ogier’s Toyota.
Photo: M-Sport World Rally Team
There was a reason for that though: “I stall one time in a hairpin and I have to lift in the straight part as I have one issue with the engine,” Fourmaux explained. “I hope we will be able to finish the loop, let’s see.”
Fourmaux’s team-mate Gus Greensmith lost 0.3s to Ogier on the test but was 6.5s quicker than his M-Sport colleague, closing to 21.2s behind in ninth.
“To be honest I’m quite happy with this time because it’s basically my first pass this morning, so that’s quite respectable,” Greensmith said, referring to his puncture on the first run of the Arganil stage.
The leader in WRC2 has remained the same for the first time all weekend, but Esapekka Lappi’s advantage has been slashed to just 1.8s by Nikolay Gryazin who won SS6.
The two Volkswagen Polo GTI R5s head Teemu Suninen’s M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally2 by 7.7s with Oliver Solberg holding an increasingly distant fourth for Hyundai.
SS6 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 11m52.4s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +0.3s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +1.4s
4 Dani Sordo/Borja Rozada (Hyundai) +2.7s
5 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +3.6s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +5.6s
Leading positions after SS6
1 Sordo/Rozada 1h08m02.6s
2 Neuville/Wydaeghe +8.2s
3 Tänak/Järveoja +9.3s
4 Evans/Martin +21.0s
5 Katsuta/Barritt +24.6s
6 Rovanperä/Halttunen +25.9s
7 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +41.0s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Renaud Jamoul +51.0s
9 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +1m12.2s
10 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Volkswagen) +3m13.0s
