Esapekka Lappi won his first stage of Rally Estonia as Thierry Neuville suffered a half-spin on the unorthodox Tartu Vald stage.
The second pass of the four-mile test was heavily rutted, particularly the early sections which included parts of the Tartu superspecial that ran on both Thursday and Saturday.
But what made it more problematic, particularly for the later runners, was the rain beginning to fall on the airfield stage.
Neuville was one driver to be caught out, arriving far too hot for a left-handed transition from old runway to gravel road, half-spinning down the road.
But he brushed off the moment at stage-end: “It was OK, but as you can see I really struggle to drive the car the whole weekend. It’s very difficult to keep it consistent.”
The precipitation opened those earlier in the running order to hit the top of the timesheets and Lappi duly delivered, outpacing Adrien Fourmaux by 0.8 seconds – despite Fourmaux’s mission to just bank the points for M-Sport’s manufacturers’ championship concern.
Fourmaux is sixth overall, 17.9s down on Takamoto Katsuta.
Rally leader Kalle Rovanperä dropped 0.8s to his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans behind him, but that’s of little concern as his advantage out front remains a healthy 40s exactly.
Ott Tänak is similarly comfortable in position, on course for a podium finish but it hasn’t been the swashbuckling effort he – and plenty others – would have hoped for in his home country.
“It’s been a long weekend, it’s been a tough job,” Tänak said. “It’s a shame when there’s so much support, but we carry on there’s still two stages to go.”
