Elfyn Evans has begun the final day of Croatia Rally by extending his lead over Ott Tänak to 30.5 seconds.
Coming into the first pass of Trakošćan – Vrbno, Evans held a 25.4s lead after building that gap up on Saturday afternoon.
And with just three stages remaining on the rally, he was able to add another 5.1s to that advantage.
“Yeah, pretty OK,” he said. “Obviously I heard the time of Kalle [Rovanperä] and I wasn’t sure if that was enough to be honest, but all clean and OK.”
Meanwhile Esapekka Lappi is firmly on course to take the final podium position after struggling to find confidence on Saturday.
He had a clean run through the stage and now has Kalle Rovanperä 44.6s behind, with Tänak a further 31.5s up the road.
Lappi said he was feeling better in the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 after yesterday’s struggles.
“Everything feels good,” he explained. “I don’t see any reason to take any risks so for sure the pace is not where it should be.”
Rovanperä began his Sunday morning by going 3.7s quicker than team-mate Sébastien Ogier.
That was enough to snatch fourth place away in a battle that could go down to the wire as the final day progresses with the pair split by just 1.7s.
But Rovanperä was still confident of finding some extra pace in the following stages after being unhappy with his SS17 performance despite taking the stage win.
“Not happy with the run,” he said.
“I was trying to change the driving style a bit after yesterday and it was not a clean stage – we can be faster at the end.”
Thierry Neuville returned to action on the final day following his Saturday morning crash that put him out of contention.
But the Hyundai driver is fully focused on the powerstage, with that now his only chance to salvage some points and lessen the blow in the championship.
“The stage is quite clean on the beginning, slightly more dusty towards the end but it’s going to be a bit worse for the others,” he said.
“We are trying some different set-ups after yesterday and we’re going to see,” he said.
Following M-Sport’s problems with Tänak’s car on Saturday, Sunday morning brought the turn of Pierre-Louis Loubet to suffer issues – not an ideal start to his day as he looked to retake sixth from Takamoto Katsuta.
“Yeah we have no engine, no stage mode,” he said. “It’s like that… we’ll see if we can fix it.”
The gap between the pair stood at 41.6s at the end of SS17.
