Sébastien Ogier has rebuffed Elfyn Evans’ inquiries into his Monza Rally lead, shading his Toyota team-mate by over two seconds on SS3 as M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux crashed out.
Fourmaux had been lying sixth overall after the first two stages, choosing a different tire strategy of four soft Pirellis with the rest on hard tires.
He bolted two hards onto his car for the repeat pass meaning he began SS3 Gerosa with a mixed set of compounds on his Fiesta, but he wouldn’t get the chance to truly see if it was a better choice as he was caught out on a slippy corner right before the finish.
Fourmaux struggled to get his Ford to brake and soon pulled the handbrake once he realised he was carrying too much speed.
He collected a bank on the right-hand side with force which pitched him and co-driver Alexandre Coria into a roll, their car coming to rest on top of the protective Armco barrier but off the stage route.
The car didn’t look to be too damaged but is in too precarious a position to continue.
Ogier meanwhile had been 3.6s faster than his World Rally Championship title rival Evans on the first pass of the Gerosa stage earlier on Friday morning, but Evans hit back on SS2 with a time 0.1s faster.
Evans’ strong pace looked to have continued onto the repeat pass of stages as he was level with Ogier in the early splits, but Evans – who has a 17-point deficit to Ogier in the championship – ended up 2.1s slower.
“Obviously Séb was very quick in that area this morning also so he’s obviously got something in there,” Evans confessed.
Ogier, whose lead is now 5.6s, added: “A little bit easier than this morning, just some greasy sections in the forest, but another clean stage for us.”
As things stand, Ogier will be crowned World Rally Champion for an eighth time.
Thierry Neuville has no interest in that fight but would like to win the rally, and so far he has struggled to find the pace to enable him to do that.
Neuville is carrying an extra spare wheel in his Hyundai and had no competitive experience of these stages prior to 2021, but he’s still frustrated to be giving it everything and not managing to make inroads on the Toyotas.
“I give it all in this stage, I was really on the edge,” he said having lost another 3.9s to Ogier.
“I am trying, I have nothing to lose so I’m going to push but it seems like we are missing grip. In the last section again I lose time so that’s not OK.”
Neuville did at least pull further clear of team-mate Dani Sordo, beating him by 1.9s to extend his overall advantage to 2.5s.
“My car is going very bad, a lot of understeer, and I don’t have precision,” said a frustrated Sordo. “You can’t push.”
Oliver Solberg maintains his hold on fifth place but felt he was “very lucky” after a sketchy moment midway through the stage. Despite this, he was 0.2s quicker than Sordo on his first rally with new co-driver Elliott Edmondson.
Gus Greensmith has moved up a position to sixth following his M-Sport team-mate’s demise, and put some distance between himself and Takamoto Katsuta who had closed up on the previous stage before regroup.
On his first event with Jonas Andersson, Greensmith admitted “we’re getting used to each other pretty quickly” and enjoyed his run on Gerosa.
“I love that stage, one of the best of the year, so all good no problems.”
Katsuta set an identical stage time to Teemu Suninen who is driving a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC for the first time; the pair split now by just 1.8s in seventh and eighth overall.
Kalle Rovanperä is ninth on his safety-first drive to try to ensure Toyota the manufacturers’ title. He’s 20.2s down on Suninen while Nikolay Gryazin now completes the top 10 in a Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo.
Andreas Mikkelsen leads the WRC2 class in 11th overall with Gryazin ineligible to score points, while Yohan Rossel leads Kajetan Kajetanowicz in their WRC3 showdown.
SS3 times
1 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) 6m35.3s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +2.1s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +3.9s
4 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Hyundai) +5.6s
5 Dani Sordo/Candido Carrera (Hyundai) +5.8s
6 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +7.5s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Ogier/Ingrassia 26m17.2s
2 Evans/Martin +5.6s
3 Neuville/Wydaeghe +20.7s
4 Sordo/Carrera +23.2s
5 Solberg/Edmondson +34.0s
6 Greensmith/Andersson +47.4s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +50.3s
8 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Hyundai) +52.1s
9 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Haltunnen (Toyota) +1m12.3s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda) +1m51.3s
