Esapekka Lappi has lost his third place on Rally Sweden after a delaminated tire led to a spin as Craig Breen picked up a puncture too.
Lappi had been setting some incredibly strong split times on SS13, the second stage of the afternoon, but on the final corner of the stage it all got away from him.
Through a sweeping left-hand bend right before the flying finish, the rear of Lappi’s Hyundai snapped away from him and in the resultant counter-steer, the car gripped up and veered into the same snowbank he had hit with the rear.
In a battle of wits the snowbank beat the Hyundai and swallowed it, and despite the efforts of some nearby spectators Lappi’s i20 N Rally1 was stuck fast.
Spectators, aided by co-driver Janne Ferm, then attempted to dig a way out for Lappi but he leaked several minutes.
“We had a small vibration on the straight beforehand and I thought there is ice or something on the tire, then it disappeared but it seems the tire delaminated.
“I approached the last corner before but there was no grip. Never happened before.”
Lappi however wasn’t the only Finnish driver to suffer a moment.
Kalle Rovanperä did well to limit his time loss to just a few seconds after the rear of his Toyota stepped out of the rutted line and swung away from him approaching a right-handed junction.
Rovanperä went round 180-degrees but benefited from the access on the road from the outside of the corner allowing him space to mash the throttle and power away from his spin.
The world champion though actually claimed to third because of Lappi’s costlier spin, but lost ground to Thierry Neuville behind.
Neuville is now just 3.7s behind Rovanperä overall.
Out front, Breen had looked set to extend his lead over Ott Tänak but saw it reduced to just 0.5s after he collected a front-left puncture.
