Kalle Rovanperä has dropped to fourth place at Safari Rally Kenya, as he struggled on with damage caused on the previous stage.
Despite setting the second fastest time and actually eating into Elfyn Evans’ rally lead as a result, Rovanperä hit a big rock towards the end of Sleeping Warrior which damaged his rear-left suspension.
“It was in the line which the water chooses for you,” Rovanperä told DirtFish.
Rovanperä worked hard to effect a makeshift repair with ratchet straps, but given the fragility of the parts he coasted through Elmenteita to drop almost three minutes to Grégoire Munster – who claimed the second WRC stage win of his career thanks to evolving rainy conditions.
Ott Tänak is now up to second, and suddenly under less pressure from Takamoto Katsuta – who had ripped over a minute and a half from Tänak on the previous stage but dropped 33.8s on SS15 due to a front-right puncture.
Katsuta is therefore 49.7s adrift of Tänak, and 0.4s ahead of the ailing Rovanperä.
Evans meanwhile leads the way by a whopping 2m50.4s.
Josh McErlean claimed his best stage result in a Rally1 car with the second-best time, while fifth-placed Thierry Neuville also picked up a front-right puncture like Katsuta.
