Elfyn Evans’ World Rally Championship title bid took a hit when he stopped to change a puncture on Rally Saudi Arabia.
Running ninth overall after 10 stages – two places behind closest rival Sébastien Ogier and one spot adrift of Kalle Rovanperä – as a result of severe road cleaning, Evans’ co-driver Scott Martin informed Evans that they had a slow rear-left puncture; noticing a loss of pressure on the TPMS on SS11.
The British crew decided to stop and change it, stationary on the stage for just under 1m40s before continuing on their way.
That means Evans now has a 2m36.3s deficit to his biggest title threat Ogier, but his pre-stage buffer of 1m24.5s over Grégoire Munster means that although Evans lost a position to 10th, he’s only 12.8s shy of ninth.
“We had a puncture alarm right at the beginning, it was going down slowly but it was so far to go that we had to take the decision to change it when we could,” Evans explained. “Not ideal.”
Rovanperä could still do Evans a favor though and take points away from Ogier, as he beat the Frenchman by 12.2s on SS11 – despite his front-left tire losing pressure towards the end.
“For sure it affected the last part quite a lot,” Rovanperä said. “Of course it didn’t go completely empty but you have to be careful not to debead the tire. A shame because I could’ve been faster, and at the end we got some of Elfyn’s dust so not an easy stage.”
Rovanperä is now 19.9s behind Ogier but as it stands, prior to Super Sunday and the powerstage, Ogier is set to be world champion with a two-point advantage over Evans.
Having received the message that Evans had a puncture before he started the stage himself, Ogier confessed: “I was very cautious, it’s just pure lottery in there. Not so much fun.”
Three drivers chasing their first WRC win have taken turns in the lead of Saudi Arabia, but it was Adrien Fourmaux who headed the pack by six seconds heading into Friday morning.
With the road sweeping effect in full force, Fourmaux used his advantage as the last car on the road to open Friday with his first stage win of the weekend – extending his lead to 7.8s over Sami Pajari.
But the script was flipped on SS10 Um Al Jerem, as it was M-Sport’s erstwhile leader Mãrtiņš Sesks who made his move. Ott Tänak was fastest on the stage by a tenth, but Sesks beat Pajari by 3.0s to relieve him of second place, and outpaced Fourmaux by 5.6s to close to just 4.2s behind.
There were no further position changes on the final stage of the loop, but Sesks narrowed Fourmaux’s lead to just 2.9s, with Pajari 4.5s off the front. Tänak is becoming a factor too, setting the pace again on SS11 to lurk just 9.2s off the lead.
“It’s perfect, we are managing it well,” said Fourmaux. “We avoid the risk but there is also a lot of loose rocks everywhere – sometimes I go round it, I lose time I know but it’s the way I approach this rally. This afternoon I expect things happening, so we continue.”
Tänak had been locked in a tight fight with his Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville for fourth place, split by 1.9s after nine stages. But Tänak dropped Neuville as rear-left damper failure on the world champion’s i20 sent him tumbling down the timesheets.
While he couldn’t match Tänak, Neuville importantly managed to outpace sixth-placed Takamoto Katsuta to protect his overall position by 15.2s. Tänak, however, is now 33.9s ahead.
“We have a broken rear-left damper,” Neuville confirmed after SS11, “but luckily in this stage not too many crests and jumps sp I was more or less OK to drive, but I was losing the rear all the time. I could’ve gone faster obviously with a car working properly.”
