Kalle Rovanperä has stolen the Rally Estonia lead from Elfyn Evans on a rain-battered final stage of Friday.
Evans had dominated the first pass of the stages in dry conditions but, as the rain fell in the afternoon, the conditions began to play into the hands of first-on-the-road Rovanperä.
He won both SS7 and SS8 to trim the deficit to the rally leader, but it all turned on its head on the short, 4.16-mile Vastsemõisa stage.
Rovanperä completed his run and knew it could be a lively stage for the rest, with rain intensifying.
“I was happy that we could use our starting place now a bit better,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what the guys behind can do, Some parts no rain, some parts full rain so let’s what happens.”
What happened was Rovanperä would turn his 10.9-second deficit into an 11.7s advantage.
“I think you can see what the story is,” said erstwhile leader Evans.
“We were properly in the bushes right at the start so after that it was just making sure we can get through, but nothing you can do in these conditions.”
Ott Tänak remains third overall but 44.3s down on the lead, as his home event has largely been one to forget so far in 2022.
It first unravelled when he was docked 10 seconds for not complying with the regulations through an electric-only zone, and then issues with the feeling in his Hyundai have slowed him on Friday afternoon.
But things took a really bizarre twist on the final stage of the day when a pipe connected to the heating in Tänak’s Hyundai came loose, and co-driver Martin Järveoja had to wedge it in place with his foot.
Tänak’s assessment was short and sweet: “Heater pipe came off and we had no visibility.”
However his 23.4s time loss was actually no huge drama when considering the context of what was going on behind.
Gus Greensmith was the first to be caught out.
“In the arena section just after a jump there was a lot of sheet water and mud and we just aquaplaned straight on,” he said.
“It could have been worse but that was insane, the rain came like that [clicked fingers] as soon as Kalle came through.”
Esapekka Lappi made a similar mistake but narrowly avoided hitting the loose rock Greensmith hat clattered.
Instead, it was fellow M-Sport driver Pierre-Louis Loubet who racked up the biggest loss at the same tricky jump section.
He drifted wide in his Ford Puma Rally1 and clipped a bank on the inside of the next corner, which pitched his car onto its side.
Loubet and co-driver Vincent Landais were quick to get out of the car but spectators were equally quick to rescue Loubet’s car, and rolled it back onto its wheels. The crew lost two minutes and dropping three positions to ninth overall, even with the help of said spectators.
“I don’t know why [we crashed],” lamented Loubet, “I completely lose the grip, it was very strange.”
Thierry Neuville, Adrien Fourmaux and Takamoto Katsuta all navigated the stage without incident and lie fifth, sixth and seventh places overall.
Fourmaux heads Katsuta by just 2.8s – and as a sign of how crazy the stage was, Fourmaux dropped 19.9s and was still third fastest.
“I didn’t know that the GB rally is back in the championship actually!” he quipped.
“The conditions were terrible, the gap between drivers is crazy but it was really tricky.”
