Thierry Neuville extended his lead of the Central European Rally over Friday afternoon’s stages which now stands at 6.4s over Sébastien Ogier.
Neuville was fastest of all through the longest stage, and had also gone quicker than his nearest rivals through the third pass of Klatovy. He dropped 0.5s to Ogier in the day’s final stage, as rain drops began to fall, but admitted he was being cautious.
“I’m happy to be at the end, to be honest,” said the Hyundai driver. “It’s easy to make a mistake in there and I knew that the only thing which was important for us was to finish the day. So I took it a bit more steady in some places but it doesn’t matter.
“Some [rain] drops were falling, but also it’s very greasy in some sections, super-slippy. We just tried to keep it safe and get through.”
Ogier was satisfied with his performance except for a section of the long Strašín stage where his Toyota dropped time to Neuville.
Ogier had been quick as a flash early on Friday morning but across the latter three stages was ceding time to Hyundai's full-timers
“The afternoon was good to drive,” said Ogier. “For some reason we had a really bad split in the previous one near the end, which we lose too much time. I have to check why.
“But it was fun to drive the car today. It’s OK, but for sure we’ll have to push more tomorrow.”
Ogier was very closely matched with Neuville’s team-mate Ott Tänak, who is just 1.4s behind him in third overall. A relaxed looking Tänak said: “We’ve had at least a clean day, and I would say we tried to take the best out of it.”
Elfyn Evans remains in the podium fight but was surprised to drop more than 7s to both Ogier and Tänak in the final stage, despite “a funny feeling” with his brakes towards the end. He lies 7.3s behind Tänak overnight. “I wasn’t expecting to lose that much,” Evans admitted.
The third Toyota of Takamoto Katsuta is fifth position, 23.5s down on team-mate Evans but nearly a minute clear of those behind. He was fastest of all through SS6, but drove more cautiously on the other stages.
“Let’s say quite a clever drive,” summarised Katsuta after the day’s final stage. “Some stage push, with good feeling and confidence; some, these kind of stages, just back off. Tomorrow may be better and easier day, hopefully easier day, so I try to do my best tomorrow.”
M-Sport's main duo have struggled to make any impression on the leaderboard, instead rooted firmly to the bottom of it in seventh and eighth
On his debut Rally1 outing on asphalt, Sami Pajari is sixth overnight in the fourth Toyota. Having lost his hybrid on the first stage of the day, it was a case of driving cleanly and safely. He is 49.6s behind Katsuta at the end of the day.
M-sport’s lead driver Adrien Fourmaux endured a frustrating day. Also hybrid-less for much of it, he struggled to find any confidence in the Ford Puma and ends the day seventh overall, 5.2s behind Pajari and more than 90s off the lead.
“It’s been a really challenging day for us,” Fourmaux admitted. “Tomorrow will be different so we’ll do our best tomorrow.”
With Andreas Mikkelsen crashing out on the morning loop, Fourmaux’s team-mate Grégoire Munster is last of the manufacturer entries, another 54s back. He too suffered hybrid failure as well as struggling with the car’s balance.
Nikolay Gryazin’s Citroën leads the way in WRC2. He was the fastest points-scoring driver on all but one of the day’s completed stages, beaten only by the non-scoring Oliver Solberg on one of those.
Yohan Rossel needs to win to overhaul Oliver Solberg in the title race but is over a minute behind his team-mate and outside the podium places
It leaves Gryazin 3.1s ahead of Solberg, after a cautious run though the final stage. Solberg actually halved Gryazin’s lead on that, despite being frustrated with his own performance.“Really bad driving and no confidence – I was way too careful,” reckoned the Swede.
Gryazin is 45.9s clear of Filip Mareš, second in WRC2, the Toyota-mounted Czech driver enjoying his home stages. Mareš is 19.5s clear of third-placed Mikołaj Marczyk’s Škoda.
Needing to win the category to keep his title hopes alive, Yohan Rossel is more than 90s behind team-mate Gryazin, fifth in WRC2. After losing 30s to a big moment the previous night, Rossel reckoned “this morning I just sleep, I think”, perhaps being over-cautious in the tricky conditions.
He was then fortunate to escape a moment at the start of the final stage, dropping another 20s to his team-mate through the test as he struggled with the Citroën’s brakes, and admitting: “I am lucky to be here.”
