Kalle Rovanperä blasted to the fastest time on SS13 Kaagvere and was immediately promoted to fifth spot as Takamoto Katsuta crashed out of Rally Estonia.
Katsuta was too hot into a sweeping right-hander – likely the result of an optimistic pacenote – and ran his Toyota Yaris WRC wide. The left rear hooked into a ditch and pitched the car into a roll, heavily denting the roof and ending Katsuta’s impressive rally as a result.
Had he kept Rovanperä behind him and secured fifth, it would have been his best WRC result to date.
Photo: DirtFish Media
Pierre-Louis Loubet was another casualty on SS13 as he clipped something early on during the stage – a rather audible clunk being heard as he guided his i20 Coupe WRC through a slow right-hander under the trees.
Just two corners later, Loubet parked his 2C Competition Hyundai with what looked to be a broken steering arm, bringing what had been a solid Rally1 debut to a sour end.
Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
Rally leader Ott Tänak was immune to the anarchy around him, gaining a tenth of a second on second-place driver Craig Breen. The gap between the leading Hyundai’s remains steady at 13.2s.
Having surrendered ground to Elfyn Evans on the previous test, Sébastien Ogier responded in the all-Toyota battle for third place. Ogier took 1.4s out of Evans on Kaagvere to bump the gap back up to 7.2s in Ogier’s favor.
Rovanperä is some 52.7s back from Evans in fifth, but had he not picked up a one-minute time penalty, he would be 0.1s ahead of Ogier in third spot.
Esapekka Lappi clawed 2.3s back from Teemu Suninen to extend his advantage back into double figures in sixth over his M-Sport team-mate.
Gus Greensmith, despite not being happy with his pacenotes, was elevated to eighth as a result of Katsuta’s and Loubet’s dramas with WRC3 leader Oliver Solberg set to take up ninth overall as the leading Rally2 runner, and class rival Egon Kaur 10th. Mads Østberg is just behind Kaur at the head of WRC2.
Thierry Neuville continued to crawl through the stages, the WRC All Live cameras choosing not to even feature him such was his conservative pace. He dropped another 38.6s to the next slowest Rally1 car Greensmith.
SS13 times
1 Rovanperä (Toyota) +0.4s
2 Tänak (Hyundai) +2.1s
3 Breen (Hyundai) 2.2s
4 Ogier (Toyota) +4.4s
5 Evans (Toyota) +5.8s
Leading positions after SS13
1 Tänak (Hyundai) 1h27m09.9s
2 Breen (Hyundai) +13.2s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +31.7s
4 Evans (Toyota) +38.9s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1m31.6s
6 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +1m53.6s
7 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +2m03.6s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +3m28.1s
9 Solberg (Volkswagen) +5m41.1s
10 Kaur (Škoda) +6m03.5s
