Ott Tänak’s stranglehold on Arctic Rally Finland has continued into Saturday as he yet again won the stage to carve open a 23.6-second lead at the head of the field.
Tänak was imperious, but was aided by several others not having a perfect start to their morning.
Second-placed driver Craig Breen for example said that his run was simply “not good enough” as he lost 7.4s to his Hyundai team-mate.
“I was in several snowbanks and I swear to god I should’ve been stuck in them,” he said.
Third-placed Kalle Rovanperä nibbled 1.7s from Breen but is now coming under pressure from Thierry Neuville, who set the second-fastest time, just one second shy of Tänak’s effort.
“It was not good,” said Rovanperä.
“We changed the set-up from yesterday and to be honest it didn’t really get better, I struggled with the car and the balance, I have a lot of understeer.
“I can’t be at the pace I want. I need to push a lot but it’s not safe anymore.”
It leaves Rovanperä 26.1s adrift of the lead, 2.5s behind Breen and now 4.7s ahead of Neuville.
Neuville’s performance put daylight between himself and Elfyn Evans, destroying his Toyota rival by 10.3s on Saturday morning’s opener to extend his advantage over the fifth-placed Yaris to 12.5s.
Evans was slightly mystified as to why: “I struggled a bit in places but can’t really put my finger on why. The conditions are nice for sure but [I was] hoping for more.”
Photo: McKlein Image Database
Neuville was not satisfied either, however, as his adjustment to new co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe continued. After saying he “struggled to understand” his new partner on Friday evening, Neuville sang the same tune after SS3.
“I can’t understand,” he said. “We made some changes on the intercom system and it doesn’t work.
“I misheard some of the words and am hesitating too much.”
Sébastien Ogier finds himself down in ninth after opening the road on Friday; a sucker-punch as it leaves him in a less preferable road position for Saturday too.
The current points leader would have hoped to make up ground on those around him but ended up getting beaten by World Rally Car debutante Oliver Solberg, who was already ahead of him in the order.
Solberg beat Ogier by 2.9s – with a really strong second half of the stage – to extend his barrier over Ogier to 6.8s. The 19-year-old was third quickest on Mustalampi, bettering the sensational fourth place he managed on Friday’s second stage.
Takamoto Katsuta looked set to beat Ogier too on SS3 but felt he was “too careful on the ice sections” towards the end of the stage.
The Japanese did however close to just 0.6s behind M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen in sixth place.
Photo: McKlein Image Database
“For me we are having good rhythm in slow places and when we are on highway I can’t drive fast on the straights,” said a rather relaxed Suninen.
“I am doing my best, we have a good fight with Taka.”
Suninen’s M-Sport’s team-mate Gus Greensmith is now an increasingly lonely 10th, 27.4s behind Ogier’s ninth-placed Toyota.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the first car on the road after the slow puncture on Friday’s final stage that dropped him back to 30th overall in the classification.
The 2C Competition Hyundai driver, who was sixth before that, set an impressive eighth-fastest time on Mustalampi despite his theoretical road order disadvantage.
“Now we just have to take experience and try to go fast,” he said.
Photo: McKlein Image Database
Lorenzo Bertelli – who is making his first WRC appearance since Rally Chile 2019 – made it less than three miles into SS3, becoming the first WRC driver to get himself beached in a snowbank on Arctic Rally Finland.
The Ford Fiesta WRC ran wide just before the opening split of the stage, and once the nose of his car had nudged a roadside bank he was sucked in, spun around and stuck fast.
Esapekka Lappi remains the dominant force in WRC2, maintaining his 100% stage-winning record to lead the class by 18.5s in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Andreas Mikkelsen, who dropped just 2.2s to Lappi on SS3, is now up to second, deposing Lappi’s team-mate Nikolay Gryazin of the position.
SS3 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 13m54.5s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +1s
3 Oliver Solberg/Seb Marshall (Hyundai) +4.6s
4 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +5.7s
5 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +7.4s
6 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +7.5s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) 45m45.2s
2 Breen/Nagle (Hyundai) +23.6s
3 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) +26.1s
4 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +30.8s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +43.3s
6 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +46.9s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +47.5s
8 Solberg/Marshall (Hyundai) +50.5s
9 Ogier/Ingrassia (Toyota) +57.3s
10 Gus Greensmith/Elliott Edmondson (M-Sport Ford) +1m24.7s
