Elfyn Evans has responded to Kalle Rovanperä’s charge at Rally Chile, bossing the final stage of Saturday morning to repel the Finn’s advances.
Evans had initially looked to be second overnight behind Ott Tänak, but adjusted notional times for SS1 lifted the Toyota driver 3.0s ahead heading into Saturday – despite Hyundai’s attempt to protest that decision.
But regardless of any notional time changes, Evans would be leading the rally after SS7 anyway as he outpaced the Estonian by an impressive 4.1s to extend his lead to 7.1s.
Evans’ advantage grew on the next stage, chiefly because Tänak suffered a half-spin on a sweeping right-hander – the rear stepping away from him and forcing him to reverse in order to continue.
Having already lost ground to the reigning world champion on SS7, Tänak’s moment cost him position to Rovanperä, who admitted to not enjoying the nature of Friday’s stages but was a happier camper on Saturday morning.
“I would say the stages are a bit better today for me, feeling wise it’s better, so let’s see if we can find some speed today,” he said after SS7.
And that’s exactly what he did.
Turning up the wick on SS8, Rovanperä took a stunning 9.7s out of Evans to close to just 1.8s behind overall.
“I probably didn’t drive to my correct rhythm,” Evans said, “but OK.”
SS9 was the longest stage of the loop and indeed the weekend, and fog and rain made it even more of a challenge. However Evans rose to that challenge, beating Rovanperä by 9.5s to bump his rally lead up to 11.3s.
“OK, bit of a surprise,” Evans admitted. “Difficult conditions. I just said to Scott [Martin, co-driver] ‘I’m not sure what that’s like’. When it’s like that you have no idea how you’ve done, but we’ll take it.”
Rovanperä admitted Evans had simply done a better job.
“I felt I did a good stage but clearly he has done better – to manage the tire you can make a big difference, so not an easy stage,” he said.
Tänak meanwhile is 6.1s behind Rovanperä and now 17.4s off the lead.
“We have no pace,” he rued. “I don’t know [why].”
After an impressive opening day, Grégoire Munster dropped back on Saturday morning – posting the slowest Rally1 time on SS7 to drop him behind Thierry Neuville into sixth.
Relieved of the burden of running first on the road, Neuville also managed to steal fourth place from Sami Pajari – but he hinted all was not well aboard his Hyundai.
“We are carrying some serious problem all morning, but we are here now,” Neuville revealed.
“We’re gonna go back to service and fix the car, hopefully a trouble-free afternoon. Also the wipers were stuck since mid-stage so I couldn’t see anything. I kept a clean run through, that’s the only thing I could do.”
Overall Pajari is 14.6s adrift of Neuville, with Munster another 21.1s back.
Esapekka Lappi’s morning got off to a rough start as he lost the front bumper of his Hyundai on SS7. But the Finn’s ingenuity helped make the best of a bad situation.
“We slid wide in the beginning on a muddy corner, and yeah just soft gravel took it away,” he explained.
“It was a bit tricky to see because it stayed in front of me, the bumper was blocking the view for 1km after that, then I saw a cut so I took it and managed to rip it off.”
Lappi – who feels he is sliding all the time – is eighth overall, 14.7s behind Adrien Fourmaux who overhauled the Hyundai driver on SS9. The Frenchman is now just 0.1s behind his team-mate Munster overall.
Sébastien Ogier would’ve been in the mix with Fourmaux and Lappi, but hitting a rock on SS8 broke a suspension arm on his Toyota and left him stranded agonizingly near the end of the stage.
Mārtiņš Sesks returned to action as the first car on the road following his double puncture on Friday morning.
Oliver Solberg took the lead of WRC2 for the first time this weekend after Saturday morning’s final stage, leading Yohan Rossel by 4.1s.
Victory would guarantee Solberg of this year’s championship title.
