Kalle Rovanperä secured his fourth stage win of the day to extend his Croatia Rally lead to 53.1 seconds.
The Toyota driver had already been gifted a greater gap before the stage even began, after Thierry Neuville was penalized 40 seconds for arriving to the service park late as a result of an alternator failure.
And Rovanperä managed to extend his lead further, after going through the Mali Lipovec – Grdanjci test in 13m00.9s, 0.6s faster than Neuville.
Hyundai’s Neuville started the first afternoon stage in fourth, and pushed hard, going through the first split fastest of all. But the difficult weather conditions meant he had to rely on instinct rather than the pacenotes, and in the end, he couldn’t match Rovanperä’s time, losing six tenths to the Toyota driver.
“We had an alternator issue [earlier today] and we changed the belt, but we lost it again on the way to service,” said Neuville.
“800 meters before service the car completely stopped and we had to push it.
“It was a tricky stage in here and I couldn’t rely on the information I had, so I had to drive with my eyes.”
But although he couldn’t eat into Rovanperä’s lead, Neuville did enough to promote himself back up to second overall, with Ott Tänak rooted in third.
M-Sport’s Craig Breen found the first afternoon stage tough, ending up 13s off Rovanperä’s pace to remain fourth, but he applauded the Pirelli tires, having made it through without a puncture.
“I had so many bangs of so many things,” Breen said at the end of the test. “I have no idea how I didn’t get a puncture, absolutely no idea. Hats off.”
But while Breen made it through without issue, the same could not be said for his team-mate Gus Greensmith, who clearly used up all his luck on his first run through the 11.93-mile test this morning.
While he managed to escape an off relatively unscathed in the morning, he picked up a puncture on his second run through, costing him over a minute, although he wasn’t sure where it happened.
“It was going fine until then, but yeah, I didn’t hit anything,” said Greensmith.
“In the braking the whole front collapsed. I don’t know.
That time loss has plummeted Greensmith down the order, and he’s now eighth overall, with Oliver Solberg moving up to fifth.
Elfyn Evans was also able to take advantage of Greensmith’s puncture. He set the fifth fastest time on the stage to move ahead of both Greensmith and Takamoto Katsuta into sixth position.
Katusta once again struggled with grip, ending up 31.9s down on his rally-leading team-mate, but retained his seventh position, while Yohan Rossel and Eric Camilli round out the top 10.
SS5 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 13m00.9s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +0.6s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +7.4s
4 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +13.1s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +22.5s
6 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Hyundai) +23.6s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +31.9s
8 Jari Huttunen/Mikko Lukka (Ford) +44.4s
9 Yohan Rossel/Valentin Sarreaud (Citroën) +45.6s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda) +48.6s
Leading positions after SS5
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) 50m21.5s
2 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +53.1s
3 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) +54.7s
4 Breen/Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +1m02.3s
5 Solberg/Edmondson (Hyundai) +1m59.8s
6 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +2m24.4s
7 Katsuta/Johnston (Toyota) +2m29.3s
8 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +2m38.4s
9 Rossel/Sarreaud (Citroën) +3m43.9s
10 Gryazin/Aleksandrov (Škoda) +4m16.6s
