Esapekka Lappi has crashed on Rally Finland, making it to the stage still in third place but with significant damage while Ott Tänak lurks one stage away from an emphatic Rally Finland win.
Lappi had been in the fight for victory throughout Friday, keeping Tänak honest over the first day but dropping back on Saturday when the wet weather hampered his pace and then a rock broke his windshield and obscured his visibility.
The Toyota driver was therefore in a safe third but risks not making it to the end of the event after a triple roll late on SS21, Oittila 2.
Lappi ran marginally wide on a left-hander and got caught on a rut which pitched the Yaris over three times. He continued on his way and somehow only lost 18 seconds, but the car had windshield damage (again) as well as a broken rear wing, and suspected radiator damage too.
He declined to speak to the stage-end reporter.
Out front, Tänak lost 0.3s to Kalle Rovanperä to hold exactly a 10s lead into the final stage of the rally.
“In our situation there is no chance to catch him,” Rovanperä conceded.
“We drive our own pace, and the atmosphere on the stages is great, a lot of fans so it’s nice to be here.”
Thierry Neuville was third fastest for the third stage in a row, and therefore has his sights set on that same position on the powrestage – not first like he normally might.
“If we can get the three points it would be really nice,” he said.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was scared he had a front-left puncture after a compression on the stage, but thankfully that didn’t prove to be the case.
Team-mate Gus Greensmith wasn’t immune from any mishaps either, having a moment on the penultimate corner of the test where the front of the Puma dug into a rut and almost spat him out the wrong way round the bend.
The M-Sport friendly fire for seventh place is firmly over though, as Greensmith heads Loubet by 22.4s.
