Elfyn Evans took a clean sweep of Saturday’s morning Rally Sweden stages to head Ott Tänak by 16.9 seconds, as Sébastien Ogier lost third place to Kalle Rovanperä again.
The rally crossed the border back into Sweden from Norway where the opening two stages of the leg were held, but there would be no change to the formbook.
Evans stole another 1.6s from Hyundai’s Tänak to win the stage despite a scary moment towards the end of the test.
“[We weren’t] particularly [pushing] actually but I was just caught out,” the Toyota star said. “I touched something, and it threw the car into understeer just at the wrong place.”
His assessment of extending his lead further over the world champion? “Yeah, OK, that’s good.”
A lot of teenagers would be psyched out by being overhauled by a six-time world rally champion. But not Rovanperä. Ogier claimed third place from the youngster on the previous test, but Rovanperä went 3.1s faster on Nyckelvattnet to relegate Ogier back into fourth with a margin of 1.3s.
“Yeah…” Rovanperä said, exhaling heavily. “It’s not easy. We had to make some changes on the road section before this one. My front tires were wearing out so much as we had too much understeer on the previous ones so we had to get used to the new set-up but after that it was OK.”
The 11.77 miles of Nyckelvattnet featured a response from fellow Finn Esapekka Lappi too, as he dealt Thierry Neuville a sucker-punch in the battle for fifth, pulling 4.1s out of the world championship leading Hyundai driver to extend the gap from 0.8s to 4.9s between them.
“There was one small mistake in the end,” Lappi explained. “I had a really bad exit where I leaned on the bank – which is quite surprising that I could lean on the bank – but anyway a really good stage and really good push.”
Craig Breen began Saturday less than second behind team-mate Neuville in seventh, but on his first WRC appearance since last year’s Wales Rally GB he has slipped back to 8.1s behind.
However Breen set a much stronger time on Nyckelvattnet, the exact same as Neuville’s, as the feeling behind the wheel of his Hyundai i20 WRC improved.
“You need to be at this from the very first stage,” he said. “But look, I’m still enjoying it, it’s a pleasure to be in the car.”
Teemu Suninen and Takamoto Katsuta continue to hold eighth and ninth position ahead of a pulsating scrap for WRC3 honours.
Emil Lindholm had led the fight heading into Saturday but had Jari Huttunen breathing down his neck.
Huttunen made his intentions clear on Nyckelvattnet as he muscled his Hyundai past Lindholm’s Skoda into 10th overall and the lead of the WRC3 class. The gap between them is 1.7s with just the short Torsby Sprint stage to go on Saturday.
Mads Ostberg leads WRC2 in 12th overall but is determined to finish as the top R5 driver. But he is 5.5s shy of that accolade and not comfortable with his Citroën C3 R5.
“I’m not comfortable so it’s difficult,” he said. “I know I’m not fast enough, I can feel every corner I’m slower than I have to be so I’m not happy with that but I’m doing my best.”
Leading positions
1 Evans (Toyota)
2 Tänak (Hyundai) +16.9s
3 Rovanperä (Toyota) +28.0s
4 Ogier (Toyota) +29.3s
5 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +35.1s
6 Neuville (Hyundai) +40.0s
7 Breen (Hyundai) +48.1s
8 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +1m14.0s
9 Katsuta (Toyota) +1m37.3s
10 Huttunen (Hyundai) +3m35.9s
