Kalle Rovanperä won his fourth World Rally Championship event of the season at Rally Chile, as Toyota shrunk Hyundai’s lead in the manufacturers’ championship.
Elfyn Evans claimed his first podium since Poland, 23.4 seconds behind his team-mate with Ott Tänak completing the rostrum for Hyundai.
Beating championship leader Thierry Neuville by one position overall, and scoring two more points on Sunday, allowed Tänak to trim Neuville’s advantage to 29 points in what now looks to be a two-horse race.
But Toyota outscoring Hyundai by 18 in Chile has livened up the manufactures’ battle, with Hyundai’s lead now down from 35 to 17 points.
Sébastien Ogier had initially led the way after the first pair of stages but whacked a bank with the rear of his Toyota which necessitated a rear-left tire change.
That dropped him out of contention, but then a rock knocked a bolt out of his suspension on Saturday which sealed the deal for the Frenchman. Although he topped Super Sunday and the powerstage, Ogier is now 41 behind in the championship and confessed his challenge is over.
Evans and Tänak moved to the front when Ogier slipped backwards, but Rovanperä was lurking only a few seconds behind. And once the rally moved from Friday’s nature of stages which the Finn didn’t enjoy, he came alive and grabbed the lead from Evans on Saturday afternoon when the fog hit hard.
From there, Rovanperä managed his lead to record the 15th win of his WRC career.
“It feels really good,” he said. “Obviously a bit disappointed if we lost [the powerstage] by 0.1s but with two spares I think we did a good job.
“The whole weekend the conditions, the weather and everything was difficult so we needed to fight for it.”
Evans ended up 20.5s clear of Tänak – who has now lost his undefeated status at Rally Chile – with Neuville another 17.2s behind.
“We knew it would be a challenging weekend, obviously it was much more challenging than we expected not only because of the conditions but we didn’t have the performance package,” Neuville said.
“It’s obvious to everyone we couldn’t match the Toyotas but we have two Tarmac rounds now, I’m happy the gravel is over.”
Neuville's championship still remains healthy after another calculated drive
Adrien Fourmaux could have challenged for the podium were it not for a broken alternator belt and cooling pipe on Friday – the latter damaged as Fourmaux tried to repair the former. The repairs meant he checked in to a time control six minutes late and therefore earned a one-minute time penalty.
On his second ever start in a Rally1 car, Sami Pajari finished sixth – a mere eight seconds ahead of M-Sport’s Grégoire Munster who showed strong speed on Friday to run as high as fourth but tailed off thereafter.
Esapekka Lappi had been on course to finish eighth after a messy weekend in which he lost two front bumpers, but the Hyundai driver retired before the powerstage.
Mārtiņš Sesks’s return to the WRC in a non-hybrid Ford Puma Rally1 was more muted than his swashbuckling efforts in Poland and Latvia, as the 25-year-old careered into a bank on Friday and punctured two tires when he had just one spare.
That retirement placed him first on the road for Saturday but he kept it clean thereafter to make the finish – despite his rear wing flying off at the finish of the penultimate stage.
Solberg didn't manage the victory he needed to guarantee the WRC2 title this weekend
Oliver Solberg headed to Chile knowing that victory would seal him the WRC2 title, but a slow puncture on SS11 wrecked his victory bid and instead he could only finish fourth.
Yohan Rossel took the win to keep his own championship chances alive, with Nikolay Gryazin beating Gus Greensmith to second – the Briton spinning his Škoda on one of the final corners of the rally.
In finishing first and second, the DG Sport outfit – which runs Rossel and Gryazin’s Citroën C3 Rally2s – claimed the WRC2 teams’ title.
Solberg could still win the WRC2 drivers’ title, but his result in Chile has opened the door to both Rossel and Pajari to take it from him in future rounds.
“We will never give up, we fight for everything we can. Definitely I think we deserve a win that’s for sure and also win the championship, but OK that’s how it is,” a teary Solberg said.
“It’s very bitter at the moment… I’m a bit emotional now because I wanted to win it and now it’s difficult. It’s been such a good year and it’s all I ever dreamed about.”
