Ott Tänak has extended his Rally Sweden lead over Craig Breen but it was Kalle Rovanperä who set the pace.
Rovanperä was the slowest of the manufacturer Rally1 cars on Friday’s opening stage, struggling as the first car on the road. But the overnight leader reversed the tide emphatically on SS3, setting the pace for the second time this weekend.
Rally leader Ott Tänak provided the clue though, saying the “first one was snowy, this one was icy” – meaning that Rovanperä was far less restricted at the head of the field and was actually potentially at an advantage.
Rovanperä’s stage-winning effort was one second quicker than Hyundai driver Esapekka Lappi, leaving Rovanperä 2.2 seconds adrift of Lappi overall and 4.9s shy of Tänak’s lead.
It keeps him fourth overall though as Breen is second, 1.9s off the lead and 0.8s clear of Lappi after setting the fifth fastest time.
Takamoto Katsuta climbed past both Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans with an impressive SS3 time that was just 1.7s weaker than fastest.
Neuville felt he had “too much understeer” and therefore he could “feel it was slow”, but vowed to “react” on the upcoming stages.
Evans meanwhile suffered a wild moment on a fast left-hander and was briefly sucked into a snowbank, owing to some of his time loss.
“Understeered on a long corner and I completely missed my apex,” Evans explained. “It’s not going well so far.”
Neuville is sixth, 10.2s off the lead and 0.4s clear of Evans.
Pierre-Louis Loubet remains detached from the rest of the field, 13.3s adrift of Evans.
Oliver Solberg meanwhile leads WRC2 by 3.2s over Ole Christian Veiby after erstwhile leader Emil Lindholm dropped over 1m30s.
The defending WRC2 champion ran wide at the same corner that caught out Evans but took on far more snow. He was therefore forced to stop to clear his radiator of snow before getting back on his way.
