Thierry Neuville has extended his lead over Elfyn Evans on Croatia Rally, increasing his advantage to 16.4 seconds over the Toyota at the end of the third stage.
A 6.9-mile test on Krašić – Vrškovac was the third stage of the weekend, with one more stage of the morning loop left to follow.
Having taken the lead following Sébastien Ogier’s puncture on the second stage, Neuville continued to grow that advantage, with Evans unable to make any inroads this time around.
But although he was second fastest of all on that test, Neuville wasn’t satisfied with the feeling of his i20 N Rally1 and feels he is being held back.
“We are more or less able to follow the times, but I feel like if we had a better car on Tarmac we would be much faster,” he said.
“I could go so much faster but the car just doesn’t let me.”
But the stage wasn’t smooth sailing for Evans, who confirmed he’d suffered a loss of pressure in one of his tires towards, ultimately costing him some time.
“We had it just near the end there, so I don’t think it cost us too much,” he explained.
“It looks like we were quite lucky with that one.”
Ott Tänak’s been expressing some concerns with his Ford Puma Rally1, but still remains in third and 23s shy of Neuville.
Esapekka Lappi is fourth ahead of Takamoto Katsuta. A good stage from Katsuta has brought the gap between the two slightly down to 14.9s.
“Of course, a little bit less cutting so it makes it more easy for us to guess what’s going to happen,” he said.
“The first two were horrible with a lot of mud coming from the inside. This one was okay but the Tarmac is still quite slippery.”
After his puncture trouble on SS2, Ogier made it through the day’s third test unscathed setting the fastest time of all, but is still in seventh and 36.8s behind Pierre-Louis Loubet.
