Sébastien Ogier has started Rally Italy’s second day with a vengeance, immediately overhauling Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai as Dani Sordo extended his rally lead over Teemu Suninen to over 20 seconds.
Low-lying sun would create a tricky challenge to kickstart Saturday, with the 13.72-mile Monte Lerno also featuring the famous Micky’s Jump within a few meters of its start.
Ogier, who was irate on Friday with having to run early on the road throughout the entire day, started the day 0.8s behind Neuville who had moved ahead him for third place on Friday’s final stage. Toyota’s Ogier immediately returned the favor on SS7, going 3.6s faster to open up a 2.8s advantage.
“Objective is as high as I can!” Ogier promised, who is now also just 8.4s behind Suninen in second after taking 10.2s out of him on SS7. But Neuville had an excuse for his time loss as he elected to take two spare tires unlike the majority of his rivals who only took one.
“Obviously carrying a second spare wheel isn’t an advantage now but hopefully across the loop and the temperature increases, hopefully we have an advantage,” Neuville said.
Suninen’s second place is looking under threat, and he knows it.
“Yeah I did my best,” he said. “There is two, three seconds which I could driver but… that’s not enough.”
Sordo – who benefited from a cleaner line than those around him on Friday – also wasn’t able to live with Ogier’s stage winning pace but only ceded 5s. He managed to increase his lead by another 5.2s up to 22.6s – despite an excursion with the local wildlife – with Ogier 31s in arrears.
“I see a cow in the middle of the road, there’s a cow in the middle and I was a little bit scared what we do with the cow!” Sordo explained.
Elfyn Evans entered SS7 fifth and exited it fifth too despite setting the second quickest time on Monte Lerno. He surrendered another 2.6s to trail his stage-winning team-mate but 18.5s now. Neuville’s Hyundai is 15.7s ahead.
Ott Tänak endured a tough Friday with the suspension issues that blighted him in the morning costing him nearly two minutes and a shot at victory. He began Saturday down in eighth but only 20.2s behind seventh spot, held by fellow Hyundai driver Pierre-Louis Loubet.
“Early morning sun to the face and low grip, but all OK,” was Tänak’s appraisal of the stage that saw him already draw to within 6s of Loubet – whose rear left wheel was off the rim after Monte Lerno – with Gus Greensmith’s fifth place now also a very feasible target. Tänak is 29.5s behind Greensmith with nine stages left.
Toyota rookie Kalle Rovanperä – who dropped down the leaderboard with steering issues on Friday’s final two stages – remains ninth overall and has a new task of running towards the head of the field in the running order on Saturday.
He has the same targets as Tänak with a few runners ahead of him within touching distance, but he has 46.7s between himself and the reigning World Rally Champion so faces a trickier challenge to make up those positions. Rovanperä was 6.1s quicker than Loubet and 9s faster than Greensmith on SS7.
“Now it’s a day of cleaning for us, it’s the first time for me in this type of condition after just one car so yeah it’s slippy so we just drive carefully,” the Finn said.
Rovanperä’s team-mate Takamoto Katsuta returned to action following his crash on Saturday and there would be no heroics as he set the slowest of the Rally1 times on Monte Lerno.
“It’s very slippy, I’m so surprised,” he admitted. “OK we need to open the road that’s a reason, but it’s very slippy.”
M-Sport’s Esapekka Lappi however wasn’t able to continue his Rally Italy adventure, his engine too badly damaged from his SS2 retirement on Friday to continue.
SS7 times
1 Ogier (Toyota) 12m46.9s
2 Evans (Toyota) +2.6s
3 Neuville (Hyundai) +3.6s
4 Sordo (Hyundai) +5.0s
5 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +10.2s
6 Tänak (Hyundai) +13.9s
Leading positions after SS7
1 Sordo (Hyundai) 1h25m32.8s
2 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +22.6s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +31.0s
4 Neuville (Hyundai) +33.8s
5 Evans (Toyota) +49.5s
6 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +1m33.1s
7 Loubet (2C Competition Hyundai) +1m56.6s
8 Tänak (Hyundai) +2m02.6s
9 Rovanperä (Toyota) +2m49.3s
10 Solberg (Škoda) +3m39.6s
