Sébastien Ogier made a decisive move in protecting his third place from Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans on the final stage of Rally Estonia’s penultimate loop.
The six-time World Rally Champion set a best time of 10m26.9s on the 12.46-mile Kambja test, to move more than 10 seconds ahead of Evans in the overall classification.
However it is still reigning world champion Ott Tänak who leads the way, the home favorite conserving a 12.5s advantage over Hyundai team-mate Craig Breen.
Both Tänak and Breen were risk averse at the start of Sunday morning, carrying two spare tires instead of one as they looked to bank a strong result that will boost both Hyundai’s and Tänak’s world championship bids.
Photo: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
The biggest battle of Sunday so far has been the scrap for third between the top two in the championship standings, Ogier and Evans.
Rally Sweden winner Evans had been hoping to make gains on Ogier, even if his answer to the reporter at the end of SS14 was rather ambiguous.
“We’re just concentrated on doing as well as we can,” he said, toeing a similar line to his perceived championship aspirations where he states he is taking things rally by rally.
“Of course we want to climb up the leaderboard if we can so we’re just taking it stage by stage.”
Ogier’s response was more of relief: “Finally,” he said after his stage win.
“We’ve been fighting a bit with the set-up all weekend, I start to feel better in the car.”
Kalle Rovanperä admitted “now it’s coming quite easy with the driving” as he backed off on the first run of Kambja. Following Takamoto Katsuta’s crash on the previous stage, Rovanperä has no reason to push and admitted as such, with too big a gap to overhaul to Evans in front.
The M-Sport Ford cars of Esapekka Lappi and Teemu Suninen have found themselves glued together in sixth and seventh, with Lappi’s advantage over Suninen evaporating.
Lappi had it up to 10 seconds after SS13, only to lose 6.2s to Suninen on SS14. That leaves him just 3.8s ahead prior to Sunday’s second loop of three stages.
“Quite bad,” was Lappi’s assessment.
Thierry Neuville upped his pace on Kambja – a dress rehearsal for the powerstage later in the afternoon – as he set the sixth-fastest time.
Neuville was frequently talking to co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul as the Hyundai crew looked to define their pacenotes to enable them the best possible chance of grabbing all five bonus points on the repeat pass.
Gus Greensmith remains on course to take eighth place and the four championship points that come with it, ahead of the leading Rally2 runners. Oliver Solberg leads WRC3 with Mads Østberg heading the WRC2 class, three stages from home.
Pierre-Louis Loubet had been ahead of Greensmith on his debut in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC but parked up on Sunday’s second stage with broken steering.
SS14 times
1 Ogier (Toyota) 10m26.9s
2 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1.8s
3 Evans (Toyota) +3.4s
4 Breen (Hyundai) +4s
5 Tänak (Hyundai) +4.7s
Leading positions after SS14
1 Tänak (Hyundai) 1h37m41.5s
2 Breen (Hyundai) +12.5s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +27s
4 Evans (Toyota) +37.6s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1m28.7s
6 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +2m08.4s
7 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +2m12.2s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +3m46.7s
