Elfyn Evans had only won three World Rally Championship stages in 2023 prior to this weekend, but on Saturday morning of Rally Finland he won four more to build a lead of 17.7 seconds over Thierry Neuville.
A rally-ending crash for Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä put Evans into the lead on Friday afternoon and he came into Saturday with a 6.9s gap to Hyundai’s Neuville.
That grew to 11.5s on Västilä, a stage south-east of Jyvaskyla and brand new to the current generation of drivers, as Neuville admitted “I was fighting with the grip” in very wet conditions and “as soon as I tried a little bit more, I lost the car”.
Päijälä, the first of three consecutive stages to exceed 12.4 miles in length, was up next and Neuville initially had the edge on his rival. He was 0.3s up on Evans on the final split before the finish, but Evans – who was the last Rally1 car on the road – beat him by 0.4s. Both had pushed hard, and Evans seemed the more laid back of the pair in the stage-end interviews.
The Rapsula stage was even longer, and Evans added another 3.4s to his lead. Neuville said he “had the perfect stage” and was “on the maxim I can do” without excessive wheelspin in the mud, while Evans emphasised he was trying to keep it tidy but also be committed.
Concluding the morning loop was the 12.8-mile long Vekkula, and Evans delivered yet another stage win by 2.4s. Neuville was not happy.
“I don’t have the grip, but the car is moving a lot,” he said, complaining that “I have a lot of inertia, and I just can’t carry on”. While Neuville thinks “on pure performance” he cannot catch Evans now, the rally leader said “it’s still a pretty small gap and a lot of rallying to do”.
The battle for third was less one-sided, with Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta starting Saturday with 12.4s in hand over Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen. He was 0.8s faster than Katsuta on the day’s opener, then moved ahead by 2.2s on Päijälä as Katsuta had a slide that almost sent him into a ditch backwards, almost sent him into another ditch forwards, then eventually into a half-spin.
Suninen described it as “an amazing stage”, although he was 7.7s off the pace, while Katsuta said it was “just so slippy”.
Katsuta bounced back on Rapsula by 0.3s, with both struggling for grip as they caught the rain while some of their Rally1s did not with a fast-moving weather front. Struggling for grip was Suninen’s go-to phrase on the next stage as well, but he only dropped 0.9s to Katsuta so currently holds third place by a second.
Jari-Matti Latvala is a lonely fifth on his return to the cockpit in the WRC, and had a dramatic moment through Päijälä as he touched a rock in one of the first few corners.
Jarri Huttunen leads the Rally2 class in sixth overall, but only by 1.3s over Sami Pajari who was a massive 10s quicker on the day’s opening stage.
