Esapekka Lappi has fallen from fourth to seventh place due to a puncture, as several drivers ran into problems on a Rally Estonia stage dominated by Kalle Rovanperä.
Lappi had been embroiled in an entertaining fight for fourth with Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, leading his rival by 6.8 seconds prior to one of Rally Estonia’s most famous stages – Otepää.
But the Toyota driver was forced to stop and change a flat on SS12 of the 24-stage rally, dropping 2m25.8s to Neuville.
“Just on the landing the rear tire dropped from the rim,” Lappi said, “and then we had a jack problem as well.
“But in the end it doesn’t matter, if you need to change a tire on this kind of rally, it’s done.”
Oliver Solberg dropped over a minute on SS12 after stopping to clear his Hyundai’s radiator which was ingested with grass – likely a result of a hefty cut early on the stage.
“I got grass in the radiator so had to stop and clear as the engine temperature went really high,” said Solberg. “There’s nothing to fight for anyway.”
Solberg is indeed well outside the top 10 positions courtesy of a crash into a tree and broken power-steering on Friday.
Despite not feeling he had “the confidence compared to yesterday”, Pierre-Louis Loubet jumped past his team-mate Gus Greensmith on SS12 into eighth place after Greensmith stopped to change a puncture – ironically in the same section of stage where he aquaplaned off the road on Friday.
It happened in a similar fashion to Lappi’s.
“We were sideways over a jump and on the landing it must have de-beaded there,” explained Greensmith, who lost three minutes.
Takamoto Katsuta arrived at the stop control right behind Greensmith given there are three-minute gaps between Rally1 cars, but there was no repeat of Katsuta catching an M-Sport on stage like he did with Craig Breen on Safari Rally Kenya.
“I got some info [that Greensmith stopped] but OK, he was gone by the time I got there so I just continued, no problem,” Katsuta said.
It was a productive stage for the Toyota Next Generation driver as he climbed two places from seventh to fifth – profiting from Lappi’s misfortune but also outpacing Adrien Fourmaux to steal what was sixth spot.
Katsuta was 5.8s quicker than Fourmaux to take the position by 4.7s, but Fourmaux wasn’t stressed.
“The rally’s still really long, so I’m not really worried,” he said.
“[It was] my first time with the World Rally Car on this stage so it’s quite surprising the speed you can take in these corners. It was a clean run I’m quite happy.”
Out front, Rovanperä turned up the heat on Toyota stablemate Elfyn Evans – outgunning Evans by a massive 4.2s to extend his lead to 15.7s.
Evans admitted “I’m not surprised” when he arrived at stage-end and learned of Rovanperä’s superior splits.
“At times things were working well but others we were just too careful,” he said. “OK, but it could be better.”
Rovanperä was as relaxed as ever: “The first two stages were tricky, but straightaway when the grip was better we felt much better with the car. Now it was quite enjoyable to drive.”
Ott Tänak was again third fastest – as he has been all morning – losing just four tenths to Evans, while team-mate Neuville is now looking secure in his new fourth position.
But all wasn’t well aboard his Hyundai.
“We had not a very good stage, the car was very strange and I was a bit afraid for Martijn [Wydaeghe, co-driver] he had a lot of pain after some landing, so we tried to take it carefully,” he said.
