Ott Tänak got his Saturday afternoon of Croatia Rally off to a great start, taking a chunk out of Elfyn Evans’s lead, with the gap now 15.9s
Heading into the afternoon loop Evans held a 22.6s advantage over Tänak. But that form didn’t continue into the afternoon, with the M-Sport driver getting the better of Evans by 6.7s on the second pass of Kostanjevac – Petruš Vrh.
Tänak remained tight-lipped at the stage end, and said he needs to keep pushing to put the pressure on.
“Let’s see. There’s still some way to go,” he said. “This was an incredibly tricky stage and we need to keep going.”
Meanwhile third placed Esapekka Lappi had a brief moment when he half spun, sending him sideways and forcing him to make amends by reversing back onto the road.
That cost him just over 10s and admitted the spin was caused by him pulling the handbrake too much.
“The beginning was quite good but then there was a lot of gravel everywhere,” he said.
“On a junction I was afraid that I would understeer, so I pulled the handbrake and it was way too much.”
Further down the field Sébastien Ogier jumped into fourth as he mounts a comeback up the field, he’s now 4.7s ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet and 1m06.9s behind Lappi.
Kalle Rovanperä also moved up a position after displacing team-mate Takamoto Katsuta. The reigning World Rally champion is now sixth, just 0.2s behind Loubet.
