Kalle Rovanperä leads Rally Finland by a slim 3.9 seconds after Friday’s morning loop, as fellow Finn Esapekka Lappi crashed out of SS5.
Lappi had been running fourth overall, just 0.3s adrift of team-mate Thierry Neuville, but exited the competition on the final stage before morning service.
Running wide through a fast right-hand corner, the back of Lappi’s i20 N Rally1 fell into a ditch which caused a head-on impact with a tree. The crew quickly emerged from their vehicle, and the stage was able to continue for the other runners.
Lappi was the third retirement of the morning following a disastrous SS3 for M-Sport as Ott Tänak retired with an engine problem and Pierre-Louis Loubet crashed.
Rovanperä was undisturbed by all this around him.
Winning all but one of the morning’s stages, he won the final Halttula test by 0.3s, but did have an advantage as he tackled the stage – being used on the rally for the first time in over two decades – at its driest. Once he was in it began to rain, and the next crews entering the stage faced very wet conditions.
Although Rovanperä said it was “quite *** for me, the grip was really low”, he did not mention the rain, while Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans was second fastest to consolidate that position overall, and said the stage looked grippy but was actually the opposite as it was “raining quite heavy”.
Hyundai’s Neuville had the same issue, claiming “I couldn’t see the road” as he went through 3.4s slower than Rovanperä and 0.7s slower than Takamoto Katsuta who made it a Toyota 1-2-3 on the stage.
Katsuta is a strong fourth overall after winning SS2.
Teemu Suninen almost did a Lappi as he went too deep into a hairpin and the rear of his Hyundai slid into a ditch, but he was immediately able to get back out of it and was only 6.6s off the pace.
Suninen is fifth ahead of Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala upon his return to driving.
There has also been drama in the Rally2 class, which was led by Jari Huttunen after Thursday’s opening superspecial.
Toksport’s Sami Pajari moved ahead once the rally headed into the forests on Friday, but Huttunen bounced back by winning SS3.
Andreas Mikkelsen is already far from the victory fight as he damaged his rear-left damper by hitting a rock on SS4, and did not get a chance to repair it before SS5.
Pajari leads the category by just 0.6s over Huttunen, with Hyundai’s Emil Lindholm third and 3.3s off the lead.
