Ott Tänak has moved up into second place on Croatia Rally after Thierry Neuville struggled with visibility issues on the fifth stage.
Like so many stages on Friday, Neuville was fastest of all through the first split, but his windscreen began to mist up in the second split costing him 6.2s to rally leader Kalle Rovanperä.
Visibility then also became an issue from the outside, with thick fog appearing in the latter half of the stage, and Neuville simply couldn’t keep up the pace, losing a further 23.7s in the final two splits to finish the test 12.4s down on him.
But while Neuville faltered, Tänak began to find his rhythm and ended the stage as the only driver able to get within 10s of Rovanperä’s time, promoting him to second overall and 3.2s ahead of Hyundai team-mate Neuville.
There was plenty of drama taking place further down the order in the fog.
Gus Greensmith had yet another incident-filled stage, going off the road at a medium speed right-hander. He crashed into a bank, and it caused him to momentarily stop, but he managed to get going again to complete the stage, although he lost over 20s to the leaders.
“It was the fog I think,” said Greensmith. “I felt like I didn’t do anything wrong, but clearly I’ve missed the line and got on the mud and just slipped off the road.
Hyundai’s Oliver Solberg also ran into problems on the Stojdraga – Gornja Vas stage.
He arrived at the end of the test with a considerably damaged front end on his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and confirmed that he’d aquaplaned off the road, but despite that, he is still fifth.
“There was one right-hander with full water aquaplaning, and I had nothing in my notes. I got a big shock,” said Solberg.
“Lucky in one way, but very annoying. Quite lucky the damage is not too much. The damage is a lot but luckily the car drives well.”
Craig Breen was one driver that did manage to make it through the stage without any major issue. He had the fifth fastest time to remain fourth overall, but was very impressed with Tänak’s time given the lack of visibility.
“That’s an incredible time from Ott, I have to say,” said Breen.
“I tried my best in the fog. I tried to be committed but I really struggled to see sometimes.
“Sometimes your eyes follow the road and it’s not even the right direction. So I’m happy to get through another stage with no mistakes.”
Elfyn Evans finally had a productive stage, reducing his deficit to Solberg from 24.6s to 7.1s, but it wasn’t enough to haul himself any further up the leaderboard.
The Toyota driver is still over two-and-a-half minutes off the rally lead, but is now 17.7s ahead of Takamoto Katsuta who was taking a cautious approach to ensure he made it through.
“It’s very difficult. Some corners have so much mud and you have to kill the speed, but it’s all okay,” said Katsuta.
“We didn’t have any moments and our gravel crew did a great job. I need to be patient today and we will get there step by step.”
Yohan Rossel now has a commanding lead in WRC2. The Citroen driver has managed to regain the class lead and is 40.2s ahead of his next closest challenger, Nikolay Gryazin.
SS6 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 13m32.8s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +7.6s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +12.4s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +12.8s
5 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +15.7s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +25.6s
7 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +28.8s
8 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Hyundai) +30.3s
9 Eric Camilli/Thibault De La Haye (Citroën) +36.8s
10 Yohan Rossel/Valentin Sarreaud (Citroën) +40.7s
Leading positions after SS6
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) 1h03m54.3s
2 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) +1m02.3ss
3 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +1m05.5s
4 Breen/Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +1m18.0s
5 Solberg/Edmondson (Hyundai) +2m30.1s
6 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +2m37.2s
7 Katsuta/Johnston (Toyota) +2m54.9s
8 Greensmith/Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +3m07.2s
9 Rossel/Sarreaud (Citroën) +4m24.6s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda) +5m04.8s
