Craig Breen has strengthened his bid for second place on Rally Italy despite nursing a “small issue” on his Ford Puma Rally1, upping his advantage over Dani Sordo to 14.7s.
Sordo, Breen and Pierre-Louis Loubet have spent all of Saturday battling for the two podium places behind rally leader Ott Tänak, with Breen now starting to edge ahead in the three-way tussle.
Despite “having to drive around a little issue” Breen was the fastest of the trio, putting another 4.4s between himself and Sordo in the battle for second.
Loubet also began to narrow the gap to Sordo once more, cutting the gap to the final podium place down to 10.3s.
Sordo meanwhile was left to rue his tire choice for the first stage of Saturday afternoon, suggesting it was the main reason he’d shipped time to the Fords.
“I’m so stupid to put soft tires and hard tires in the rear. There’s no grip at all,” he lamented.
It wasn’t the same story for his team-mate, though. Tänak blitzed the field to go fastest by 6.2s, extending his lead of the rally to a healthy 37.2s over Breen.
The margin of his stage win took the 2019 world champion aback.
“I’m very surprised,” he said. “I always felt like I was losing a lot. I’m really struggling with the engine. It’s really difficult but obviously, it’s good traction, then.”
A promising morning for Adrien Fourmaux had indicated he too was about to join the fight for the podium places, having closed the gap to M-Sport team-mate Loubet to 17.7s.
But that progress of inching closer to the front fell apart on Coiluna-Loelle, as his front-left tire came off the rim and cost him half a minute.
“I think it’s a debead because we didn’t lose the pressure at the end, so I just tried to manage the tire,” said Fourmaux.
“At the end it was so low I thought it was a transmission [issue] but hopefully it’s not that. Let’s see. It’s a shame.”
After spending most of Saturday struggling to get on top of his Toyota on the slowest and most technical sections of Sardinia’s gravel roads, the more open terrain of Coiluna-Loelle finally allowed Kalle Rovanperä to find some speed.
He went second-fastest and recouped the 10s he lost to Takamoto Katsuta before the midday tire fitting zone, as the Next Generation driver ended the stage looking frazzled.
At stage end Katsuta jumped out of his Yaris to inspect the front end before pulling away, suggesting something may be amiss with his Toyota.
Katsuta has a near-two-minute advantage over Gus Greensmith’s Ford Puma in eighth place.
SS14 Results
- Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 13m44.6s
- Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +6.2s
- Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +6.3s
- Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (M-Sport Ford) +7.0s
- Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +9.4s
- Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai) +10.7s
- Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +17.2s
- Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +18.5s
- Jari Huttunen/ Mikko Lukka (M-Sport Ford) +32.5s
- Nikolay Gryazin/ Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda) +32.7s
Leading positions after SS14
- Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 2h07m20.7s
- Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +37.2s
- Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai) +51.9s
- Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (M-Sport Ford) +1m02.2s
- Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (M-Sport Ford) +1m46.9s
- Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +2m10.4s
- Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +2m26.9s
- Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +4m19.6s
- Nikolay Gryazin/ Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda) +5.02.5s
- Jan Solans /Rodrigo Sanjuan (Citroën) +5m36.2s
