Sébastien Ogier’s planned attack on Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä’s fourth place has been thwarted after a puncture on the opening stage of Sunday on the Ypres Rally.
After the long transit east that rally leader Thierry Neuville described as a “sleeping road section”, Sunday’s Ypres Rally action has left Flanders and is being held in and around the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Ogier headed into the first of four tests, Stavelot, just one second behind Rovanperä but ended it 9.2 seconds behind as he collected a left-rear puncture.
Explaining how it happened, Ogier said: “There was a section that was more narrow than recce, they resurfaced it, it was hard to estimate I hit wide and hit some rocks.”
Rovanperä pulled 8.2s clear of Ogier but is aware the gap “is still not too much”, although his eyes will now be looking forward as he managed to outpace his other team-mate Elfyn Evans by 1.6s on SS17.
That closes him to just 1.6s behind third place as he grabbed his first stage win of the weekend.
“I had a bit of a moment at the start and lost quite a bit of momentum there, and [it was] quite tricky on the circuit so not able to lean so much on the car,” said Evans. “Not easy.”
Out front, Neuville had eked his lead advantage up into double figures on Saturday’s final stage and was afforded more breathing space on Sunday’s opener as Craig Breen ran into a bank and lost 6.2s to Neuville.
“I just got caught out, you have to be very careful here,” Breen simply said.
Ott Tänak, running sixth overall after his puncture and wheel jack drama on Saturday, was even more terse when asked what his plan for the day was.
“It’s about doing our job and our job is driving, so I am driving,” he said.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the first driver to experience Belgium’s most famous circuit as he restarted following an unplanned trip into a ditch on Saturday.
Gus Greensmith, who visited the ditches on Friday, was 1.3s faster than Loubet and enjoyed the opportunity to drive on Spa.
After struggling with power-steering failure on most of Saturday’s stages, WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg’s weekend took a more major hit on Sunday morning as his Hyundai i20 N Rally2 failed to start up with an electrical issue.
He is therefore out of the rally, gifting the class lead to his team-mate Jari Huttunen who’s the only driver in WRC2 not to have retired at some point in Belgium.
WRC3 championship leader Yohan Rossel’s big battle with leading Belgian Rally Championship driver Sébastien Bedoret continued on Sunday morning.
Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
Having been overhauled by Bedoret across Saturday and beginning the day 0.9s behind in eighth overall, second in WRC3, Rossel hit back on Stavelot to grab seventh spot by 4.7s with three stages remaining.
SS17 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 5m06.2s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +1.3s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +1.4s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +1.6s
5 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +6.5s
6 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +7.6s
Leading positions after SS17
1 Neuville/Wydaeghe 2h11m26.4s
2 Breen/Nagle +16.3s
3 Evans/Martin +42.6s
4 Rovanperä/Halttunen +44.3s
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +53.5s
6 Tänak/Järveoja +3m55.1s
7 Yohan Rossel/Alexandre Coria (Citroën) +10m59.0s
8 Sebastien Bedoret/Francois Gilbert (Škoda) +11m03.7s
9 Pieter Jan Michiel Cracco/Jaspen Vermeulen (Škoda) +11m26.7s
10 Fabian Kreim/Frank Christian (Volkswagen) +11m57.8s
