Kalle Rovanperä cut into Thierry Neuville’s advantage on the opening Friday afternoon test of Rally Estonia, as Oliver Solberg retired from the lead of WRC2.
Rovanperä went 4.7 seconds faster than Neuville, slashing the Hyundai driver’s lead to just 2.1s. With rain falling in places, Rovanperä may have had the best of the conditions, even though he struggled with opening the road on the second loop after the whole field had been through it earlier in the day.
“So many small cars went through between that the line is really horrible,” Rovanperä explained. “And on the small roads I don’t have any option than to follow it. For sure, we had a good stage, it was a bit wet in places so tricky conditions. But the road condition is not easy.”
Neuville dropped most of his time in the final sector and reckoned the conditions were to blame. “It’s with the rain, it’s not the same conditions so not much you can do,” he said. “The conditions are evolving with every car, some muddy sections, and just a couple of places where ‘bam’, you lose the speed. But compared to Ott it’s still a good time, so we can be happy.”
Having been fastest through the first four stages, Ott Tänak could only manage the fifth fastest time, 5.6s slower than Rovanperä. “We thought it was [going to be] quite muddy but there was nothing in the end so we were far, far too soft,” explained Tänak. It did little to affect his overall position, almost five minutes behind after his earlier penalty.
Elfyn Evans lost another 2.4s to Toyota team-mate Rovanperä; like Neuville it was mostly in the final sector of the stage where he reckoned he was too cautious. But he was happy that a rear differential change at service had improved his car’s handling. He remains third overall, 8.6s behind second-placed Rovanperä.
With his morning hybrid issue fixed at service, Esapekka Lappi was closer to the pace. Second fastest through the stage, 2.1s slower than Rovanperä, he took 0.3s out of Evans to close to just 1s behind the third-placed driver. “We did well,” said a satisfied Lappi. “I tried to be clean and sometimes I tried to push but few surprise so… but we are here.”
The third Hyundai of Teemu Suninen remains fifth overall, 7.9s behind Lappi, after setting exactly the same time as Neuville. “I was really worried to pull the tires out of the rim because the ruts are just incredible,” said Suninen.
M-Sport’s Pierre-Louis Loubet has moved into sixth place, a further 16.2s back, after going 8.1s faster than Takamoto Katsuta, who struggled with “no confidence at all”, through the stage.
Andreas Mikkelsen now leads WRC2 as Solberg ran wide and clipped something with the rear-right of his Škoda.
