Sébastien Ogier fended off a challenge from Hyundai’s Ott Tänak to provisionally secure maximum Saturday points on Central European Rally.
Ogier had assumed the lead after Thierry Neuville went off into a field and got momentarily stuck in a ditch on Saturday morning – but then immediately faced a challenge from the other front-running Hyundai.
Tänak won the second pass of Granit und Wald by 3.4s to put pressure on the eight-time world champion before Ogier immediately responded with stage wins on the next two tests to increase his advantage to 5.2s.
“We had to react,” said Ogier. “He [Tänak] was fast in the previous one, so we had to be fast on this one.”
Tänak struggled to match Ogier on the faster, wider and drier parts of the later stages
Though unable to catch the lead Toyota, Tänak did extend the gap to Elfyn Evans in the second GR Yaris Rally1 to 8.8s.
Evans struggled to match the pace of the lead duo when the conditions began to dry out, suggesting his father and route note crew driver Gwyndaf had been somewhat conservative with his adjustments.
“A lot of markings have improved a lot, some hesitations here and there. I should learn to ignore what the old man says sometimes!” Evans joked at the end of the Beyond Borders stage.
“You have to trust what they’re saying to a point but the conditions are evolving so much that you have to take everything with a pinch of salt.”
After his morning dramas Neuville had a cleaner run on the afternoon pass of Saturday’s stages, though admittedly he almost repeated his costly mistake from earlier in the day from how wide of the mark his pacenote for the left-hander in question had been.
Neuville said: “We paid the price, it was definitely a mistake in the recce with the pace note because even now the note was slower and it was still nearly too fast. I didn’t see that last night as well, so a bit disappointed about that.”
That outcome has provisionally reduced Neuville’s lead in the drivers’ championship from 29 to 24 points over Tänak; he must finish CER 31 points ahead to clinch a maiden world championship title tomorrow.
Aside from a brief trip off into a field in the morning, Takamoto Katsuta had a reassuringly uneventful Saturday
Takamoto Katsuta became the first driver in World Rally Championship history to be penalized for breaking the speed limit in a virtual chicane. He went eight kilometres per hour (5mph) over the maximum speed on the opening stage of the day and accrued a 16-second time penalty once the Clerk of the Course notification had been delivered after midday service.
Katsuta wasn’t the only one to fall foul of the virtual chicane: WR2 runners Eamonn Boland and Petr Nešetřil, plus Fiesta Rally3 runners Jan Černý and Mireille Vidueira also committed similar violations.
That landmark penalty didn’t affect Katsuta’s overall position though, finishing the day 52s adrift of Neuville and over half a minute ahead of Sami Pajari, who is running in a non-manufacturer-point-scoring fourth Yaris.
Grégoire Munster goes into Sunday sitting seventh, unable to match Pajari’s pace. Having struggled with copious understeer earlier in the rally, he’d resorted to treating Saturday afternoon as a “giant pre-event test” and tinkering with setup.
“It’s helping but at the wrong moment,” said Munster of his setup tweaks.
Citroën driver Nikolay Gryazin leads the way in WRC2, 31 seconds ahead of Toksport’s Oliver Solberg. However Solberg isn’t registered for drivers’ championship points, with Chile his final nominated round of the season, and the points he’ll score for Toksport won’t change the title outcome as DG Sport clinched the teams’ championship in Chile.
Solberg no longer needs to worry about Rossel overhauling him in the title race – but in CER the other Citroën of Gryazin has bested him throughout
Gryazin’s team-mate Yohan Rossel came into CER with an outside shot at the WRC2 title, needing victory to overhaul Solberg’s final points tally but with Pajari still able to beat them both should he enter Rally Japan.
Rossel’s slim hopes, already severely impacted by a crash on Friday that damaged the right-rear of his C3 Rally2, were ended entirely when he went off on Saturday’s first test. He resumed and completed all of Saturday’s stages but with 14 minutes lost with his earlier mistake, a maiden WRC2 title is now effectively out of reach.
Filip Mares completes the WRC2 podium places aboard his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, with two-time Polish national champion Miko Marczyk and three-time European champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz completing the top five.
