Craig Breen has crashed out of Rally Estonia, his most successful World Rally Championship event in the past.
Breen had led the rally after Thursday night’s superspecial and settled into an early fourth overall after Friday’s two stages.
His pace on SS4 Raanitsa was looking strong – up on both Kalle Rovanperä and Ott Tänak on the splits – but Breen ran off the edge of a tightening left-hand corner and beached his Puma Rally1 in the forest undergrowth.
M-Sport team boss Rich Millener relayed that being “half a meter off line” was what triggered Breen’s off, and it was an impact once already off the road that stopped him from continuing.
“He’s actually broken the front suspension as well where he’s gone off in the grass,” Millener added. “I would say he’s probably hit a rock or touched a rock or something and broken the front suspension. So that’s why he can’t continue.”
After two stages that had only been included in Rally Estonia once before, the playing field seemed to level out on SS4 Raanitsa – a more familiar stage for all the drivers.
Elfyn Evans’ irresistible form at the head of the field continued regardless as he extended his rally lead into double figures for the first time, beating second-placed Tänak by 5.2 seconds.
Rovanperä is now the closest Toyota to Tänak in third place. Last year’s Estonia winner trails the 2020 winner by 6.4s having beaten Tänak by 0.9s.
“We tried to improve the car and I have so many surprises now, so something went wrong,” Tänak smiled.
A wild slide on the very first corner of the stage set the tone for Thierry Neuville on SS4, who had struggled with the rear of his Hyundai earlier in the day – and evidently wasn’t on top of the problem.
“We made some changes in there and I was fighting a lot in there to keep it straight,” he explained. “I was struggling with the dampers as well, I did not feel the grip and the precision.”
Neuville lost six tenths of a second to Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi but that time loss was fairly inconsequential, as Lappi remains 7.1s in arrears – and still struggling with his brakes.
“It’s very tricky as I need to change the driving style completely to try to manage and keep some speed,” Lappi said.
“When you left-foot-brake you have nothing, normally I do that and now I cannot do it. For the brain it’s a bit tricky.”
Neuville and Lappi have both been promoted a place however following Breen’s demise, lying in fourth and fifth overall.
Breen’s exit has also made Adrien Fourmaux M-Sport Ford’s lead runner in sixth overall.
“I was enjoying so much in the stage, it was a beautiful, beautiful stage,” he enthused. “It was so fast, it was crazy. I can be really happy honestly, really nice.”
Oliver Solberg had been Fourmaux’s nearest challenger but a nightmare stage for the Hyundai driver, who spun when the rear of his i20 N Rally1 snapped from him and then stalled at a hairpin.
Those woes dumped him behind Takamoto Katsuta and the other two Pumas of Gus Greensmith and Pierre-Louis Loubet and into 10th place.
“I have no grip, at all,” he said. “I tried but… what can I do? I have no confidence at all. I don’t know.”
Katsuta confessed he was “not fully happy” with his SS4 performance but his pace returned to the level expected of him, going sixth fastest on stage.
He trails Fourmaux by just 1.4s overall, with Greensmith’s M-Sport five seconds behind and Loubet’s similar car a further seven tenths back.
