Takamoto Katsuta has moved into the lead of Rally Sweden with just two stages to go.
The Toyota driver began Sunday 3.0 seconds adrift of his team-mate Elfyn Evans, but has stormed 4.5s ahead with a stage win on SS16.
“That’s good,” Katsuta smiled. “I was very, very clean. OK, a few places are quite slippy than what I expected so I had to use the banks but it wasn’t so bad. Still I can more push, so maybe I don’t need [to] – I don’t know.”
Evans was only fifth fastest on the stage, dropping 7.5s while Ott Tänak has closed to within just 1.8s of Thierry Neuville’s third place.
“No real issue,” Evans said, “just struggling for confidence with the front end and then not carrying the speed. I’m not sure why it’s feeling so different today.”
Neuville complained of “understeering all the time” while Tänak was second fastest and happier to be running the engine map he wanted.
Elsewhere, M-Sport’s Mārtiņš Sesks extended his advantage over Sami Pajari in sixth despite his handbrake malfunctioning and locking all four wheels instead of just the rear.
And his team-mate Josh McErlean lost 49 minutes after getting stuck in a snowbank.
Katsuta currently also leads the Super Sunday standings by 0.9s over Tänak, with Kalle Rovanperä third.
