Kalle Rovanperä leads Rally Estonia after another dramatic stage in which Ott Tänak retired and Craig Breen lost yet more time in a contentious manner.
Rovanperä had provisionally moved into the lead of the rally on SS3 after Tänak punctured and Breen was swallowed in the dust of an ailing Gus Greensmith, but Breen’s SS3 time has been adjusted and he therefore started SS4 one second up on Rovanperä.
Greensmith would cause Breen issues again on SS4, although this time it was of no fault of the M-Sport crew. The mechanical issues they were carrying weren’t cured, and Greensmith and co-driver Chris Patterson ground to a halt.
Patterson did the right thing and got out to warn the approaching Breen and Paul Nagle, but a stage marshal did the same but in an excessive manner.
The marshal stood in the middle of the road with an orange high-vis marker indicating there was a major issue, but in reality Greensmith’s Fiesta WRC was in a safe position tucked in on the inside of the exit of a corner.
TÄNAK RETIRES FROM RALLY ESTONIA
A puncture on SS3 was followed by an off and a long stoppage with no sign of repair
Breen was understandably irate: “There was a boy in the middle of the stage doing like X [with his arms], I went on road mode, I went really slow on the top of the crest and he was pulled in.
“People need to be switched on, if it’s not a danger then don’t f****** worry about it.”
The incident cost Breen 3.5s to Rovanperä meaning he now trails by 2.5s overall, but Hyundai is likely to protest that time loss again with the event stewards.
Tänak meanwhile had been dumped down to seventh following a puncture on the previous test, but retired altogether on SS4 when a wild off-road moment seemed to damage his radiator.
Takamoto Katsuta is now into a podium position after setting the third-fastest time on SS4, just 5s from the pace.
He felt however that he was “quite lucky” as he “went wide, something hit but didn’t break anything”. His deficit to the rally leader is 20.5s.
World champion Sébastien Ogier remains in fourth despite being overhauled by Katsuta because Thierry Neuville collected a rear-left puncture on SS4.
Neuville carried the issue for just under half of the stage and lost 17.5s to the stage best, 8.2s to Ogier and trails by 6.6s overall.
Elfyn Evans, who beat Ogier by 1.2s on SS4, is up to sixth with a 7s deficit to Neuville. That position gain is at the expense of Teemu Suninen who picked up a rear-left puncture, just like Neuville, but it cost the M-Sport driver an extra 27.8s in comparison to the Hyundai.
2C Competition’s Pierre-Louis Loubet also jumped ahead of Suninen on the leaderboard, but only by 1.1s, to hold seventh place with Suninen eighth.
The demise of both Tänak and Greensmith has promoted two Rally2 cars into the overall top 10, and it’s WRC3 pacesetter Alexey Lukyanuk that occupies ninth position ahead of Mads Østberg who heads WRC2.
Oliver Solberg is however out of the running, retiring after SS3 as he went over a jump in his Hyundai and landed too hard on the front, causing a leak in the radiator.
Edit: After the stage it was announced that Katsuta had retired for the day, which promotes Ogier into third place and brings Andreas Mikkelsen into the points in his Toksport Škoda.
SS4 times
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) 8m10.5s
2 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +3.5s
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +5.0s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +8.1s
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +9.3s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +17.5s
Leading positions after SS4
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen 24m58.2s
2 Breen/Nagle +2.5s
3 Ogier/Ingrassia +22.5s
4 Neuville/Wydaeghe +29.1s
5 Evans/Martin +36.1s
6 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (Hyundai) +1m05.3s
7 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +1m06.4s
8 Alexey Lukyanuk/Yaroslav Fedorov (Škoda) +1m14.5s
9 Mads Østberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroën) +1m21.3s
10 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (Škoda) +1m26.7s
