Craig Breen doubled up on stage wins at the head of the Ypres Rally, claiming a second stage in a row to move 1.6 seconds clear of Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville, as Adrien Fourmaux crashed out.
Breen and Neuville have been closely matched throughout the entire loop so far, never split by more than one second on a single stage.
However Breen almost broke that barrier on SS3 Kemmelberg, edging Neuville by 0.9s to narrowly extend his lead.
“I didn’t think that was such a good one, I tried to be so super clean,” Breen said.
“The last time I was down those stages was 2013 or 2014 and I was trying to remember where the grip was and exploiting it where I can. It’s so much fun.”
Neuville was quicker than Breen through the early splits and at one point looked poised to snatch the lead from Breen, but a ragged final split looked to do the damage as his wait for a World Rally Championship stage win on home soil continued.
“This one is a little more tricky, a few grip changes even I didn’t have in my pacenotes,” Neuville said, referencing his vast experience on this event.
“I kept my rhythm, the rally is long and we all know how tricky Ypres can be.”
Photo: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
Early rally leader Ott Tänak’s slump continued on SS3 as he lost another 9.6s to Breen, lying 16.7s behind overall and falling firmly into the clutches of fourth-placed Elfyn Evans as a result.
But Tänak wasn’t giving anything away as to why his pace has dropped off so sharply since his storming SS1 performance.
“It was a clean rhythm,” he said. “It’s difficult with the slippy places but a clean run.”
By contrast, third-fastest Evans “didn’t feel so comfortable” on SS3 but he maintained his record of being the fastest Toyota driver on all three stages so far.
“The grip was a lot more mixed than the previous one, so yeah not ideal,” he added.
Kalle Rovanperä remained fifth overall, 3.3s behind Evans, and also not entirely happy aboard his Yaris WRC.
“When I know the grip I am on the limit so I cannot do much more in those places,” he explained. “This one I was too careful in the beginning, I’m not so happy with the time.”
Rovanperä indeed lost over five seconds through the first split but only another couple of seconds to the leaders on the rest of the stage.
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
Sixth-placed Sébastien Ogier had looked set to beat Evans for the first time this weekend, only for a front-left puncture to put paid to those aspirations.
“Not too long, two kilometers,” Ogier said when asked when he had picked up the flat tire. The reigning world champion is 28.3s adrift of Breen’s rally lead.
Gus Greensmith made some set-up changes to his Ford Fiesta WRC ahead of SS3 which he felt had made a positive difference, which showed in his stage time.
The M-Sport driver was 3.2s faster than Takamoto Katsuta, closing to just 2.8s behind in eighth overall.
Photo: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
His team-mate Fourmuax had been ahead of Katsuta overall prior to Kemmelberg, but spectacularly lost the rear of his Fiesta WRC and crashed out of the rally just a few hundred meters from the end of the test.
Approaching a fast left-hand bend, the rear of Fourmaux’s car stepped out where the road was polluted and was then on a one-way course for an accident.
The in-car camera cut-out but Fourmaux’s Fiesta came to rest, wheels-down, in one of the road-side ditches.
Pierre-Louis Loubet lost some time passing the stricken Ford, cruising as he was unsure if he needed to stop. But it does little to his overall position in ninth as he already had a sizeable deficit to Greensmith ahead.
SS3 times
1 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) 11m39.7s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +0.9s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +6.2s
4 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +8.3s
5 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +9.6s
6 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +12.2s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Breen/Nagle 30m06.6s
2 Neuville/Wydaeghe +1.6s
3 Tänak/Järveoja +16.7s
4 Evans/Martin +17.1s
5 Rovanperä/Halttunen +20.4s
6 Ogier/Ingrassia +28.3s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Keaton Williams (Toyota) +41.4s
8 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +44.2s
9 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (2C Competition Hyundai) +1m28.9s
10 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +2m25.4s
