Sébastien Ogier leads Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans heading into the final day of Safari Rally Kenya despite having his lead halved on the final stage of the day.
But Saturday ended with a brutal sting in the tail as the rain finally arrived for the Sleeping Warrior stage.
Thierry Neuville was first in and ended up setting the initial pace as the rain got worse for those behind him.
After a run that included a lock-up and spin on the final corner, Neuville laughed as he crossed the finish-line.
“You can’t describe the conditions,” he said, “unless you are in the car you cannot describe it. It’s impossible to understand how it feels to drive it.
“I look forward to watching the battle behind…”
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the next driver to make the end of SS13, and he made exactly the same mistake at the final turn as Neuville.
He dropped 52.3 seconds to the Hyundai but that simply didn’t matter.
“I think I take a pretty nice shower 5km towards the end, the sky started to fall! It was crazy,” Loubet said.
“Just go through slowly, but even then I did a spin on the last corner.”
Team-mate Ott Tänak made it three for three with a spin at the final turn, but also had wild moments throughout the stage as well.
“Yeah… f****** hell,” said the M-Sport driver.
“That is impressive, very impressive. It’s worse than slicks on ice – impressive.”
The rain began to relent for the later runners though and soon the times started to tumble.
Known for his prowess in the rain, it’s perhaps no surprise that nobody could match Rovanperä on the demanding stage, as the reigning world champion set the pace by 13.1 seconds.
“Last year was slippery but nothing like this,” Rovanperä said.
“There was heavy rain before us and it stopped but there was so much standing water. We are here in one piece, so that was our only goal today.”
Rally leader Ogier gave up 16.7s to his team-mate, surviving a small scare as he drifted wide at a fork in the road and clipped something with the rear of his Toyota.
But the eight-time champion still leads the rally by a relatively comfortable 16.7s, arriving at stage-end with two flat-looking tires on the front.
“I cannot say that I have so much luck with these black and round tires, but that’s the way it is.”
Evans meanwhile stole back the third spot he lost to Takamoto Katsuta on the previous stage.
“Would you rather swap?” Evans asked the stage-end reporter.
“It’s super slippy in there. There’s only so many of those big slides you have until it’s time to calm it down and get it round.”
Toyota is on course for its second 1-2-3-4 finish in a row on the event, with Evans ending the day 16.7s ahead of his team-mate Katsuta who suffered a difficult stage.
First he spun in the dry and had to reverse, then there was a half-spin in the middle of the rain shower as he put the power down in the water-filled ruts and the car swapped ends on him.
“Even with no rain I spun, and after I got to the really muddy section it was very horrible,” Katsuta said. “I’m really happy to be here.”
Katsuta ended the day 1m12.3s ahead of Dani Sordo who was proud to make the end of a stage he described as “very, very, very, very slippery – on another level” without any problems.
M-Sport pair Tänak and Loubet are sixth and seventh ahead of WRC2 leader Kajetan Kajetanowicz, who is now in a dominant position following the retirement of Grégoire Munster due to a mechanical podium.
Neuville has made his way up to ninth.
