Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier has become the third different leader in as many Rally Turkey stages but World Rally Champion Ott Tänak is out, dealing his title aspirations a major blow.
Saturday’s opening Yeşilbelde test offered more competitive running – 19.75 miles – than the entire of Friday; meaning the 6.6 seconds that covered the top eight runners was significantly widened.
The dust issue from Friday was eradicated with the gaps between cars extended from three to four minutes, but that didn’t help Tänak who was eliminated from proceedings four miles from the end of the stage.
His i20 Coupe WRC veered straight into a bank with what is suspected to be a steering issue and, despite an attempt to repair the car, the World Rally Champion would go no further. He retired from seventh, but had started SS3 just 4.8s away from the rally lead and very much in contention.
It was nine-time world champion Sébastien Loeb who was that leader on Friday, but the nine-time champion couldn’t quite live with the supreme pace set by Ogier and Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville out front and dropped to fourth.
Stage winner Ogier was incredibly just 1.8s faster than Neuville on the 25-minute stage, and now moves into the lead by 1.7s after starting the test one tenth back.
“We have to [push],” Ogier said. “It’s still not too rough, it’s still very slippery but not a bad stage from me.”
Neuville was less happy: “It was an OK stage but I am shaked too much and I have no confidence in the very rough so we need to work on the car.”
Loeb, who was 18.1s slower than Ogier, is now 16.8s adrift of the lead and 7.2s back from Elfyn Evans, who has jumped up to third in the second Toyota Yaris WRC.
“I tried to push, maybe too much, but I had no grip at all in the stage, was very difficult,” said Loeb, who was left to question whether his crossover of medium and hard compound tires was the best bet.
Kalle Rovanperä is fifth overall and was fifth fastest on Yeşilbelde, 22s away from team-mate Ogier’s rally lead.
Just like in Estonia a fortnight ago, the two lead M-Sport Fords of Teemu Suninen and Esapekka Lappi are beginning to find themselves in no-man’s land.
But Suninen has put daylight between himself and Lappi with a very strong time on Yeşilbelde. He beat his team-mate by 23.3s to hold a 25.7s advantage in sixth.
Gus Greensmith told DirtFish on Friday night that he wanted to try and match his team-mates on Saturday, but lost 8.3s to Lappi and a massive 31.6s to Suninen on the opening test.
The Briton, who is eighth, was frustrated with the lack of feeling in his Ford Fiesta WRC on the hard compound tire on Friday, and the trend looks to be continuing on Saturday.
“As soon as we’ve changed to this hard tire I cannot control the car,” he said. “I’m crawling around, I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Greensmith was quicker than Pierre-Louis Loubet, who opened the road, by 15.3s. He therefor holds a 27.7s advantage over the ninth-place Hyundai.
SS3 times
1 Ogier (Toyota) 24m54.2s
2 Neuville (Hyundai) +1.8s
3 Evans (Toyota) +8.8s
4 Loeb (Hyundai) +18.1s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +20.6s
6 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +30.7s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Ogier (Toyota) 43m46.4s
2 Neuville (Hyundai) +1.7s
3 Evans (Toyota) +9.6s
4 Loeb (Hyundai) +16.8s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +22s
6 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +33.6s
7 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +59.3s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +1m17.1s
9 Loubet (2C Competition Hyundai) +1m44.8s
10 Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) ++2m46.9s
