Kalle Rovanperä has extended his Rally Estonia lead to above 40 seconds with his 13th stage win of the weekend, as Thierry Neuville survived a hot moment into the bushes.
Rovanperä has moved further clear of Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans on Sunday morning, helped in part by a spin for Evans on the previous stage.
But on Kambja 1, which will run as the powerstage later, Rovanperä was again imperious as he outran Evans by two seconds – despite trying to be slow!
“Let’s see how the condition will be on the second pass, but for sure now we need to save the tires for the powerstage later,” he said when asked if he would be tempted into a push for powerstage pounts.
“I tried to be really slow but yeah… the stage was really nice the first time at least.”
Neuville is running in a fairly anonymous fourth place, but had a wake-up call on SS21 when he was too hot into a left-hand bend and ran wide into a bush.
“I got caught in a mid-speed left hander, I went a bit wide,” he said, his Hyundai carrying a bit of foliage in its front grille.
“I just lost the rear, I couldn’t do anything. We need to work a bit on my seat somehow, it completely moved and I’m sitting completely next to the steering wheel.”
Oliver Solberg had his second off-road excursion in as many stages, overcooking his entry into a tightening right-hander and sliding off the road and nudging a collection of hay bales.
“It’s very slippery to be so early on the road today, it’s so loose so I’m not so happy today,” Solberg said.
Takamoto Katsuta and Adrien Fourmaux’s battle for fifth is now well and truly extinct as Katsuta now heads Fourmaux by 21.6s. Fourmaux’s pace dropped dramatically, but all for good reason as he’s now the only one of the four M-Sport drivers not to retire at any point this weekend.
“All OK, just now we don’t take any risk and we want to finish the rally like that,” Fourmaux confirmed.
Esapekka Lappi is busy doing his own thing in seventh overall, half a minute down on Fourmaux. But the Toyota driver wasn’t totally comfortable.
“When I try to push, the road is not wide enough,” he said. “It just feels impossible to drive fast at the minute, I don’t know why.”
Craig Breen set a strong pace on SS21, going fourth fastest on the first pass of what will be the powerstage later on Sunday afternoon.
“I had a 70-80% run through the stage just to check the notes that there are no surprises,” he said. “But it’s really beautiful, I’d love to be in the thick of a fight.”
But Breen wasn’t as quick as Ott Tänak; the Estonian driver going third fastest to edge Breen by 3.3s.
However it’s been another rally to forget for the Hyundai driver. Asked if things were feeling good, Tänak responded: “Ha! Compared to some things yes maybe a bit good, but honestly far from good.”
