Esapekka Lappi will play no further part in Rally Finland, but both Kalle Rovanperä and Pierre-Louis Loubet will restart on Saturday.
Four Rally1 cars retired from Friday’s leg. First to fall was M-Sport’s Ott Tänak who lost all of his engine oil when his Puma’s sump guard was holed by bedrock on SS3.
The team has already confirmed that Tänak’s car has been retired for the weekend, eliminating the chance for him to salvage any points from the powerstage.
Team-mate Loubet, ironically, retired on the very same stage as he came into a sweeping right-hander too fast, ran wide and clouted a tree with the rear-left of his Ford.
Lappi exited the contest two stages later having made a mistake on the recce and he approached a fast sequence of left-right corners too fast. The Finn’s Hyundai left the road and hit a tree head-on in a 17G impact.
Rovanperä then rolled out of the rally on the afternoon’s third stage when he failed to catch a slide through a fast right-hander, drifted towards the inside of the corner and then found a rock which pitched his Toyota over.
All three drivers were fearful that their Friday incidents could spell an early end of their weekend, but in the end only Lappi has been forced to sit out Saturday and Sunday’s stages.
Loubet will start Saturday’s action as the first car on the road, followed by Rovanperä.
