World Rally Champion Ott Tänak holds a margin of just over seven seconds over Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä at the halfway stage of the South Estonia Rally.
The revised one-day event, which is being used by seven of the WRC runners as a warm-up for the upcoming Estonian round of the World Rally Championship, began with shakedown on Saturday with six-time world champion Sébastien Ogier emerging the fastest for Toyota.
Morning rain made for wet stages and ruts during the opening loop, with Tänak complaining that the roads were “too soft” for his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.
Despite this, Tänak was fastest in each of the morning’s four tests, beating Rovanperä by 1.8s on the 6.5-mile opener, Autospirit.
Tänak then extended his margin by nearly five seconds on the next stage, eventually taking a 7.5s lead over Rovanperä by the end of the loop.
Rovanperä admitted to struggling with “a lot of understeer” on a badly rutted third stage of the day in his Toyota Yaris WRC, ironically a stage in which he only lost two-tenths of a second to Tänak.
He then tweaked his set-up to accommodate for the rougher roads and, despite admitting to driving more carefully on SS4 Haanja, the Finn maintains an 8.7s lead over Ogier in third.
Behind Rovanperä is Ogier, albeit some 16.2 off the pace of Tänak.
Ogier said that he had been “a bit too careful” during the opening stage, citing that the long break between rallies had made it difficult to trust the pacenotes on some of the faster sections of roads.
Lamenting deteriorating road conditions, Ogier – who was first on the road – was only fifth fastest on the third stage as the road began to clean for the runners behind but declared himself “happy” on the final stage before service as he moved back into third overall.
Focusing primarily on finding the right set-up for the WRC event next week, Elfyn Evans briefly went ahead of team-mate Ogier before the first service, but a slower time on SS4 means he lies two seconds behind at the midday pause.
Thierry Neuville was another to struggle with rutted roads in the second Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC. He’s fifth, some 20s behind team-mate Tänak, but a full 30s ahead of Esapekka Lappi’s Ford Fiesta WRC.
In the battle for Rally2 supremacy, Hyundai junior driver Nikolay Gryazin holds a narrow lead over Eerik Pietarinen’s Škoda Fabia R5 heading into service.
Pietarinen won the first stage but Gryazin hit back with the fastest time in SS3 and SS4 to edge his Finnish rival by just one-tenth of a second.
Jari Huttunen lies third, ahead of Ole Christian Veiby in another Hyundai i20 R5.
M-Sport WRC driver Teemu Suninen is sixth in class at service, having been slowed on the opening stage with a puncture. Despite his misfortune, Suninen is just 14s off the pace of Gryazin.
