Thierry Neuville leads Rally Estonia after Friday’s opening loop of stages by 6.8 seconds from championship leader Kalle Rovanperä.
Neuville continued to defy expectations of his pace on fast gravel stages, perhaps benefiting from a strong working relationship with team-mate Esapekka Lappi on setup and development work. He was second fastest to Ott Tänak through the super-quick 13.3-mile Raanitsa, expected to be the fastest stage of the rally.
Neuville appeared to clip – or at least came very close to – a telegraph pole with his right-rear, but avoided any damage. However, he felt he could have been faster.
“I was struggling a bit in there,” said Neuville. “When the surface is hard the grip is really low, and I struggled with that, I was losing the rear all the time. A couple of wide slides but I had fun! It could have been better, to be honest, but we are having fun and the car feels not so bad.”
Facing the worst of the loose gravel as he opens the road, Rovanperä still managed to be third fastest on each of the morning’s stages to remain in touch with the leader. “We did everything we could,” Rovanperä reported.
“It was not easy – I was pushing really hard on every stage. This one was faster. There’s one big jump on the big road and you can hear your bones cracking on the neck when the hit is so big”
Elfyn Evans was again unable to match his Toyota team-mate’s pace, some 2.2s slower through SS4, which leaves him third overall, 13s off the lead. “It doesn’t feel good, to be honest,” Evans rued. “Just can’t turn it as I want, so struggling at the minute.”
Lappi, without a functioning hybrid after a heavy landing on the morning’s first test, again dropped time, but was only 3.9s slower than team-mate Neuville after a big push. He remains fourth overall, just 1.3s behind Evans.
“I gave everything in there, I can tell you,” said Lappi, who will be hoping the issue can be fixed at service. “I pushed really hard – a few times really on the limit, but we tried to minimize the time loss.”
Teemu Suninen makes it three Hyundais in the top five after an encouraging morning on his first event in a Rally1 car. He is just 5.3s behind Lappi.
“What else I can do?” smiled Suninen, who has been confirmed for only this event and the next round in Finland. “If I have two rallies, I have two rallies for us to push. It’s just an amazing car, it’s so fast. Still need some learning but I’m really enjoying.”
Tänak was again fastest through the test, completing a clean sweep of the first four stages of the rally. He was 1.6s faster than Neuville, and would lead the rally by 10s but for a five-minute penalty for an engine change.
Not all was well aboard the M-Sport Ford Puma though. “For some reason we lost engine in the mid-part,” Tänak reported. “But sounds like it’s coming back so should be OK.”
Takamoto Katsuta and Pierre-Louis Loubet lie sixth and seventh overall, separated by just 0.8s, but half a minute off the pace. Katsuta reported that he was “struggling a lot” and planned to make some changes in service, while Loubet explained some of his time-loss to damage from an earlier hit.
In WRC2, Oliver Solberg leads after winning two of the morning’s three stages. His advantage over Andreas Mikkelsen’s similar Škoda Fabia RS Rally 2 stands at a healthy 13.5s. Home driver Georg Linnamäe is third in his Hyundai i20 N Rally 2, a further 9.9s back.
