Elfyn Evans ends the penultimate day of Safari Rally Kenya nearly two minutes clear at the front, as Kalle Rovanperä slid to fifth following contact with a rock that broke his suspension.
Evans and Rovanperä were glued together at the start of the leg but two punctures for Rovanperä across the morning loop stretched Evans’ lead to over 1m30s.
But any thoughts Rovanperä had of keeping his Toyota team-mate under pressure were thwarted on the first stage of the afternoon, when the wet weather drifted him towards a rock which damaged his rear-left corner.
The double world champion got to work effecting a makeshift fix and was therefore able to avoid retirement, but his pace was significantly reduced due to the fragility of his rear end.
Rovanperä therefore fell from second down to fifth place – 6m06s off the lead – leaving Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville to complete the overnight top three, with Takamoto Katsuta fourth.
All three of the afternoon’s stages were caked in mud, but the day-ending Soysambu stage was particularly treacherous – cars struggling to even stay in a straight line in the filthy conditions.
Both Katsuta and Neuville had issues on the stage, but Katsuta was the bigger loser. He had been pressuring second-placed Tänak with a massive stage win to open the afternoon loop, but a puncture on the next stage dropped him back again.
Another puncture – which this time Katsuta decided to stop and change – afflicted him on SS16 and Neuville was able to sneak ahead by 33.2s, despite his Hyundai sounding unwell and dropping power towards the end of the stage.
Tänak meanwhile had a clean afternoon, winning the final stage to find himself 2m36s ahead of his team-mate who rounds out the overnight podium.
Evans though is still in control. A spin on the afternoon’s second stage and some sort of collision on the last that crumpled his hood were definite dramas, but that’s not bad going given the punishing conditions.
He dropped 53s to Tänak on SS16 but still leads the rally overnight by 1m57.4s.
In WRC2, Gus Greensmith nicked the lead off Jan Solans on the day’s final stage, to head his rival by just 5.8s overnight. They’re eighth and ninth overall, behind the Rally1 cars of Sami Pajari and Grégoire Munster.
