Sébastien Ogier reclaimed the lead of Rally Portugal with a determined drive through a torrential Saturday afternoon loop.
Oliver Solberg stunned Ogier on SS14 before service, beating him by 19.1 seconds to suddenly fly from fourth to first place.
Ogier couldn’t work out how he’d lost quite that much time, but realized he needed to increase the risk level and respond in the afternoon.
And that’s exactly what he did: fastest on SS15, SS17 (by a mammoth 11.2s) and SS18 as the rain battered the stages, the reigning champion turned a half-second disadvantage into a 21.9s advantage over Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville.
“I needed to respond, it was a disastrous stage in the morning,” Ogier said. “It’s one of the stages in my career I have no idea how it’s possible I lost so much time. This time around the condition helped. In this rain many things can still happen.”
Josh McErlean found that out to his cost, as the M-Sport driver crashed on the day-ending Lousada superspecial – the car sliding into a wall with force on a muddy right-hander.
McErlean retired on a soaking Lousada superspecial
The Irishman had already lost three minutes on SS17 when he slid off the road, but returned thanks to the help of spectators.
Rival Takamoto Katsuta, who ended the day in seventh, empathized with McErlean.
“Very sorry for Josh, this is unbelievable. Nothing he can do,” said Katsuta. “This corner was full of mud and he cannot do anything – this is ridiculous. Sorry for him, this is not really nice.”
McErlean was the second M-Sport driver to retire from Saturday afternoon after Jon Armstrong rolled his Puma 600 meters into the second loop.
Out front, Solberg also had a tricky afternoon as a front-right puncture dropped him to fifth behind team-mates Elfyn Evans and Sami Pajari.
Despite a half spin on a separate stage, Solberg overhauled Evans but ended Saturday 23.8s behind third-placed Pajari.
Adrien Fourmaux led Rally Portugal on Friday but is now 1m23.8s off the lead in sixth, with team-mate Dani Sordo a distant eighth and Mãrtiņš Sesks ninth.
WRC2 leader Teemu Suninen completes the top-10, taking just a 0.9s advantage into Sunday’s decisive leg.
