Kalle Rovanperä extended his lead once more at the head of the Rally Estonia order despite it looking as though Craig Breen would to slash his deficit to the rally-leading Toyota on SS7.
Breen began the second pass of Otepää 6.2 seconds behind Rovanperä, but was as much as 2.8s up on the splits before his pace began to decrease.
Eventually he stopped the clocks 1.7s slower than Rovanperä, meaning the gap between the pair now stands at 7.9s.
“I knew that was going to happen,” said Breen, when asked how he had managed to cede that advantage.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
“That last part was the part I was stuck in the dust this morning [behind Gus Greensmith]. [For that] fast part in the forest you need to be committed and unfortunately we didn’t have a proper go at it this morning.”
Rovanperä felt he could have gone quicker, saying: “It felt too clean this stage.
“I wasn’t pushing too much on the rough parts, so there is time to gain. Let’s push more on the next one.”
Thierry Neuville eroded his deficit to Sébastien Ogier further on SS6, trailing the third-placed Toyota by 2.9s after going 2.4s quicker.
But Neuville wasn’t happy, explaining: “It’s not enough.
“I have the feeling like we should be faster because we’re trying hard but the times are just not where I’d like.
“OK, at least we catch back some time and we carry on.”
Ogier has done a good job of staying in contention given his poorer road condition, and has both his title rivals Elfyn Evans and Neuville behind him to boot.
Evans lost more ground to his two rivals too, as his deficit to Neuville’s Hyundai grew to 12.9s.
“I wasn’t happy, especially with the beginning of the stage,” he said. “I didn’t have the commitment needed.
“It got better towards the end but it’s funny how you can tell straight away.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet clipped one of the anti-cut devices set up on the inside of corners, briefly fearing it had damaged his radiator.
Photo: M-Sport
However all turned out to be OK and he set the seventh-fastest stage time, 8.5s slower than Teemu Suninen, who said he now understood the “headache” the leaders always face with road cleaning given how loose the gravel on the stage was.
Andreas Mikkelsen’s lead in WRC2 stood at 21.8s as he defeated Østberg by 5.9s on SS7. Østberg had led the class before a puncture on the previous test robbed him of 15s.
“When you don’t know why you have problems it’s not easy to carry on in the same way,” said Østberg.
SS7 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 8m19.5s
2 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +1.7s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +2.2s
4 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +4.6s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +6.3s
6 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +14.5s
Leading positions after SS7
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen 49m25.3s
2 Breen/Nagle +7.9s
3 Ogier/Ingrassia +42.7s
4 Neuville/Wydaeghe +45.6s
5 Evans/Martin +58.5s
6 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (2C Competition Hyundai) +2m14.1s
7 Alexey Lukyanuk/Yaroslav Fedorov (Škoda) +2m42.4s
8 Suninen/Markkula +2m44s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (Škoda) +2m59.5s
10 Emil Lindholm/Reeta Hämäläinen (Škoda) +3m18.4s
