Elfyn Evans leads a Toyota 1-2-3 at Rally Sweden, but Oliver Solberg is down in fifth after a dramatic Friday morning.
Solberg led the way into the first full day after winning Thursday night’s Umeå stage by 3.8 seconds over Evans.
But Evans hit the front on Friday’s opener, overhauling Solberg who suffered a stall at a hairpin towards the end of the stage.
However worse was to come for Solberg on SS3, as he lost the rear of his GR Yaris Rally1 and fired into the deep snow, burying the throttle to escape from certain retirement. Solberg managed to make the end of the stage but got a front-left puncture for his troubles, and fell from second to sixth.
A stage win on the final test of the morning then promoted him back to fifth, 0.1s ahead of Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux and 36.3s off Evans’ lead.
Evans is one of few drivers to suffer no drama across SS2-4 and therefore established a solid early advantage, but stage conditions could work against him on the second pass as the second car on the road.
Katsuta confidently declared “this next loop should be ours” with his lower start position of fifth, but he also has team-mate Sami Pajari just 8.8s behind him.
On his WRC return, Esapekka Lappi is the leading Hyundai in fourth overall, 34.9s off the lead, with Thierry Neuville over one minute further back after getting sucked into a snowbank on SS3 and unfastening his seat belts to clear his misted-up windshield.
Jon Armstrong is the lead M-Sport Ford but is already 1m43.8s off the front on what proved to be a disastrous morning loop for the team.
Mãrtiņš Sesks picked up two front punctures on the first stage of the day, losing over seven minutes to change them, and then collected another on SS3. But one of his damaged tires was in decent-enough condition to enable him to complete the loop.
Team-mate Josh McErlean also suffered two rear punctures on SS3, leading M-Sport team principal Richard Millener to admit the tire pressures the team was running were too low for the conditions.
