Kalle Rovanperä has taken a decisive swing in his battle to win Rally Estonia against Craig Breen, destroying the World Rally Championship field on Saturday morning’s opening stage.
That opening stage – Peipsiääre – was atypical of the kind of Estonian stage drivers and fans have grown accustomed too.
While it was still fast, it was more technical and narrower with some overgrown shrubbery; leading M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen to describe the test as “like driving in the darkness when we can’t see round the corner”.
Rovanperä was clearly a fan of this nature of test, as he left all of his rivals in their wake. He held a lead of 8.5 seconds over Breen after Friday, but exited SS10 with a 22.8s cushion after beating him by 14.3s on the test.
The restarting Ott Tänak – who exited the contest on Friday with three punctures – was the only man who could get close to Rovanperä, setting a time 10.7s slower.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
“It was a proper wake-up call this morning,” admitted Rovanperä. “The most difficult stage of the rally. I was just counting on it, doing my job.”
Breen accepted defeat upon hearing that Rovanperä, starting after him on the stage, was around eight seconds up on him through the splits.
“That little man is in the car a lot more than I am, so I did honestly a perfect stage,” he said. “I tried everything I can and if he’s eight seconds faster, he can have it.”
The battle for third is an important one as all three battlers are in the frame for the title.
Thierry Neuville holds the final podium spot on the rally and looked set to extend his advantage over championship leader Sébastien Ogier but come the end of the stage he actually lost 0.6s to the Toyota.
“My car was moving a little bit too much towards the end of the stage,” was Neuville’s explanation.
“The grip was decreasing and with all the movement I couldn’t commit, but the time loss is not too bad.”
Neuville is now 5.4s ahead of Ogier overall, but Ogier pulled another 2.8s out of his fifth-placed team-mate Elfyn Evans too to keep him 18.5s behind. That was despite Ogier admitting he “didn’t feel fantastic” on SS10.
Gus Greensmith was the first car onto the stages following his mechanical retirement on Friday, and didn’t set an overwhelming pace on Saturday’s opener as a result. He was a full 37.1s slower than Tänak who was just one car behind him in the start order.
“The grip felt OK, it was quite consistent but I had a bad run through there,” rued Greensmith.
Greensmith’s time wasn’t the slowest of the World Rally Car runners however as Pierre-Louis Loubet was another 9.1s slower than Greensmith.
“Struggling a lot, I didn’t find the grip or the pace so very difficult for me this stage,” Loubet said.
The 2C Competition driver is seventh overall, 12.4s behind Suninen’s M-Sport Ford.
Suninen slid wide on a slow left-hander and neatly parked his Fiesta WRC in a road-side gap in the trees. He was soon on his way after a moment he described at stage-end as “nothing serious”.
After a multitude of problems on Friday afternoon’s four tests, reigning WRC2 Champion Mads Østberg has put the hammer down in his Citroën on SS10.
Østberg set the Rally2 pace, relieving Nikolay Gryazin of his second place in class thanks to beating him by 6.9s on the stage. He also stole 9.8s from WRC2 leader Andreas Mikkelsen to narrow his deficit to 28.5s.
Alexey Lukyanuk however continues to lead the Rally2 cars on the event, heading the WRC3 field. The reigning European Rally Champion couldn’t live with Østberg either on SS10 though, dropping 3.3s to him.
Lukyanuk is eighth overall, with Mikkelsen ninth and Østberg 10th.
SS10 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 12m47.4s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +10.7s
3 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +14.3s
4 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +15.6s
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +16.2s
6 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +18.4s
Leading positions after SS10
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen 1h19m41.8s
2 Breen/Nagle +22.8s
3 Neuville/Wydaeghe +1m09.6s
4 Ogier/Ingrassia +1m15.0s
5 Evans/Martin +1m33.5s
6 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +4m06.0s
7 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (2C Competition Hyundai) +4m18.4s
8 Alexey Lukyanuk/Yarislav Fedorov (Škoda) +4m46.7s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (Škoda) +5m13.1s
10 Mads Østberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroën) +5m41.6s
