Sébastien Ogier overhauled Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä into third place as Elfyn Evans once again extended his Rally Sweden lead over Hyundai’s world champion Ott Tänak.
Rovanperä lost 1.9 seconds to Ogier on the 12.85 miles of Finnskogen to slip back into fourth place, 1.8s behind his six-time world champion team-mate.
“I don’t know [where I’m losing time] I’m trying my best,” said the 19-year-old Finn.
“I’m driving much better than yesterday but the times are not there and I don’t know why
“Maybe I’m losing some studs but I don’t know where I could save them so I’m really disappointed with the times, they are not good.”
Despite overtaking his team-mate, Ogier wasn’t entirely happy either as he continues to learn the Toyota Yaris WRC on just his second event in the car.
“[I’ve] struggled a little bit today so some confusion with my set-up as we change it and it feels a lot different to the stage before but [in] a positive way so we need to use it more,” he revealed.
Tänak was quicker than Ogier but couldn’t keep with Evans – who took another 3.6s out of the Estonian to lead by 15.3s now. Only three stages remain in the rally, so is it job done?
“Anything can happen so we need to keep in this rhythm,” Evans reminded us.
But what about his performance on Finnskogen? “Yeah, good. I said to Scott [Martin, co-driver] I wasn’t sure if I was a little bit careful I saw the lines of the other guys going sideways but it seems we are carrying good speed going forward so that’s good.”
Tänak’s opportunities of overhauling Evans are becoming ever slimmer as he began to learn what his rivals experienced in 2019 when they were destroyed by a Toyota over a stage.
“Slowly, slowly [the feeling is coming] but [I] can’t say I’m feeling really comfortable,” he said. “I do as I can but for sure it’s now how I need to be.”
Esapekka Lappi lost 0.4s to Thierry Neuville in their battle for fifth position, but he still holds the place by 0.8s. Despite staring down the barrel of a drop down the leaderboard, M-Sport’s lead driver was surprisingly relaxed.
“This stage was also really good so I’m really pleased with the driving,” he said. “It’s better than yesterday. I can’t do more so that’s the way it is.”
In complete contrast, Neuville felt he could have done better: “It was a bit better but probably not enough given the time of Craig [Breen],” he commented. “I’m surprised, I thought I had done a better stage than this.” Neuville is just 8.5s shy of Ogier’s third place, however.
There was no real change at the lower end of the top 10 leaderboard. Craig Breen (Hyundai), Teemu Suninen (M-Sport Ford) and Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) all remain comfortable in seventh, eight and ninth places ahead of the R5 squabble behind.
Emil Lindholm continues to lead WRC3 in his Skoda but is now just 1.9s ahead of Jari Huttunen’s Hyundai. Huttunen won the test to overhaul WRC2 leader Mads Ostberg and give Lindholm a bit of a headache.
Leading positions
1 Evans (Toyota)
2 Tänak (Hyundai) +15.3s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +25.2s
4 Rovanperä (Toyota) +27.0s
5 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +32.9s
6 Neuville (Hyundai) +33.7s
7 Breen (Hyundai) +41.8s
8 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +56.8s
9 Katsuta (Toyota) +1m20.4s
10 Lindholm (Skoda) +3m05.6s
