Oliver Solberg has begun to carve time out of Elfyn Evans’ Rally Japan lead, winning two of Saturday morning’s three stages to reduce the gap to 10.6s.
As had been the case on Friday Solberg was quickest on the day’s first stage – in this case, the first pass of Obara – besting Evans by 3.2s
Though Evans responded with a fastest time on SS8, another scratch time for Solberg on Mt. Kasagi narrowed the gap further.
Toyota’s senior pair of drivers – Evans and Sébastien Ogier – both struggled in the morning compared to a more chipper Solberg.
“Not a good feeling at all,” Evans said at the finish line of SS9. “The car is too loose.”
Evans has won two of the last three editions of Rally Japan
It was a similar story for Ogier, who is now 9.5s behind Solberg in third place and 20.1s off the lead.
Asked how he was feeling after the Saturday morning loop, a seemingly frustrated Ogier replied: “Not so good – but that’s how it is.”
Sami Pajari is now over half a minute off the podium places and is being caught by the fifth Toyota of Takamoto Katsuta, who successfully usurped Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville for fifth place on the first stage of the morning.
Katsuta had been in a despondent mood on Friday after two off-road moments and falling a minute off the pace – but woke up in a better frame of mind for Saturday’s stages.
“For sure I had a reset from yesterday,” said Katsuta, who gained 2.8s on Pajari across Saturday’s first three stages.
Adrien Fourmaux has taken over as the lead Hyundai in sixth place, with Neuville suffering chronic understeer and well off the pace on Saturday morning.
Thierry Neuville tumbled down the order on Saturday morning amid a trifecta of troubles – chronic understeer, no handbrake and no experience of these stages from last year's rally
Neuville was 24.9s slower than his younger team-mate across the Saturday morning loop; some of that time loss was due to a faulty handbrake on the Mt. Kasagi test but most was down to his recalcitrant i20 N Rally1 refusing to turn in.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Neuville at the end of the earlier Ena stage. “We’ve never been that bad in the downhill. Usually we’ve been fast here but I can’t do anything. I am full lock all the way through.
“We are changing setups and nothing is making it better. Compared to yesterday we are far off the balance we had. It’s just getting worse and I don’t know why.”
Fourmaux took little solace from taking sixth place away from Neuville: “It’s not the target to be fighting with our teammate so it’s very much a shame.”
Hayden Paddon extended his advantage over the M-Sport cars behind him despite struggling with an “edgy” handling car. His biggest challenge though was experience deficit on stages that have been run multiple times in the past.
“These stages are so hard for the first time,” said Paddon. “Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve watched the videos for this event, there’s nothing like driving them.
“Everything looks the same, there’s so many corners. It’s really hard to make up for that deficit. Trying the best we can, trying to drive to the notes best I can, but everywhere there’s places we could have gone faster. We’re making small steps.”
Jon Armstrong is 33.9s behind Paddon in ninth; he had a minor overshoot on the Mt. Kasagi stage – luckily for him, the damage to the front-left of his Ford Puma was purely cosmetic.
Gryazin leads WRC2 despite an impact damaging his suspension
“I missed the braking coming into a five right into a very slow corner, so just went a bit wide and touched a bank,” Armstrong explained.
WRC2 leader Nikolay Gryazin completes the top 10 overall, having retaking the top spot in the second-tier category from Alejandro Cachón; the pair are only 6.4s apart. That’s despite Gryazin damaging his right-rear suspension in an impact on the Obara test, which caused vibrations in high speed sections.
Josh McErlean is 12th, having lost over two minutes with a puncture on Friday afternoon; his M-Sport team-mate Romet Jürgenson in a Fiesta Rally2 had been ahead of McErlean but crawled to the finish of the Mt. Kasagi test after losing braking power.
