Sébastien Ogier has moved to within 11 seconds of the Monza Rally lead with his second stage win of the weekend as rally leader Esapekka Lappi only managed the seventh-fastest time.
At 10.07 miles, Cinturato is the longest of all the circuit stages and has already bitten the WRC’s frontrunners, with Thierry Neuville retiring on the first pass after first clipping a chicane bollard and then drowning his engine.
While there were no casualties on Cinturato 2, it did shake up the leaderboard as Lappi lost ground.
Lappi had hit the front after selecting four snow tires – with his rivals on wets – on Friday’s second stage, a move all the Rally1 runners have since copied.
The M-Sport driver dropped 9.6 seconds to stage winner Ogier on SS5 to have his advantage over the Toyota driver slashed. Second-placed Dani Sordo nicked 0.5s from Lappi too, bringing the lead gap down to 2.8s.
“Everything is good it’s just very tricky,” Lappi insisted.
For Ogier, winning the rally is key in his battle for the World Rally Championship title against his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans.
Evans’ time was just 0.1s slower than the one he managed on the first pass – showing great consistency – but he ceded 3.1s to Ogier and now trails his team-mate by 6.1s in fourth.
Ogier was just thankful to get through unscathed: “You are always happy when you cross the finish line in this condition,” he said.
Despite losing time to Ogier, Evans did secure his hold on fourth position over Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, who lost time first with a suspected an engine stall and then when he gently locked up and nudged a gate post.
The reigning world champion was forced to select reverse before continuing and lost 2.6s to Evans, putting him 3s back overall.
Sixth placed Kalle Rovanperä edged his team-mate Evans by 0.1s on the his first attempt at the stage at rally speeds. Rovanperä was one of three drivers to receive a notional time after the first pass of the stage was stopped as marshals worked to recover Neuville’s stricken Hyundai.
“It’s really demanding in these conditions, you have to be extra careful almost on every place,” Rovanperä said. “You cannot really rest anywhere on the stage, even on the straight line.”
Takamoto Katsuta remains outside the top 30 overall after crashing on Thursday’s opening stage, but the Toyota junior showed great promise with the fourth-fastest time on SS5.
He ended up just 4.2s shy of Ogier’s benchmark, which sealed a 1-2-3-4 for the Toyota Yaris WRC on the stage.
Ole Christian Veiby is continuing his Rally1 learning curve in a 2C Competition Hyundai, but currently trails Andreas Mikkelsen’s WRC3-leading Škoda in seventh overall by 13.1s to hold eighth.
In WRC2 it’s advantage Pontus Tidemand (pictured above) both in the rally and the title battle as he beat Mads Østberg by 11.6s and Adrien Fourmaux, who had starred early on, lost 44.6s to fall to third with a rear-right puncture.
“We just decided to put winter tires on this stage. First corner: puncture,” Fourmaux rued. “That’s rallying.”
Østberg remained in second spot despite losing position to Tidemand because of Fourmaux’s dramas.
“We’re trying to be a bit safe of course but situation is complicated and conditions are very, very tricky,” he said.
“It’s not feeling great but we are trying to survive. The big day is tomorrow and we need to stay in touch.”
Mikkelsen leads in WRC3 but it’s Jari Huttunen that is still in prime position to take the title.
Despite Emil Lindholm and Oliver Solberg holding second and third in class (and ninth and 10th overall), Huttunen is fourth, ahead of both his title rivals Kajetan Kajetanowicz (fifth) and Marco Bulacia (sixth).
SS5 times
1 Ogier (Toyota) 11m53.5s
2 Rovanpera (Toyota) +3s
3 Evans (Toyota) +3.1s
4 Katsuta (Toyota) +4.2s
5 Tänak (Hyundai) +5.7s
6 Sordo (Hyundai) +9.1s
Leading positions after SS5
1 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) 47m34s
2 Sordo (Hyundai) +2.8s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +10.5s
4 Evans (Toyota) +16.6s
5 Tänak (Hyundai) +19.6s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +25s
7 Mikkelsen (Škoda) +53.2s
8 Veiby (2C Competition Hyundai) +1m06.3s
9 Lindholm (Škoda) +1m36.2s
10 Solberg (Škoda) +1m44.4s
