Oliver Solberg has dominated Saturday morning of Rally Estonia, winning three of the loop’s four stages and extending his rally lead to 22.8 seconds.
Solberg started the day 12.4s ahead of home hero Ott Tänak, but questions hung over his head given his rivals would now all have a similar road position to him.
However Solberg has been imperious aboard his Toyota, reeling off stage wins despite still adjusting to the Rally1 car and making tiny mistakes.
A fight between the Hyundais behind has helped, but Solberg has effectively doubled his advantage over the course of the morning.
He lost out on the SS12 win to Tänak, but only by 0.5s.
“Fantastic morning loop – really, really strong,” Solberg said.
Tänak had hoped to put Solberg under pressure on Saturday, but instead has been engaged in a fight with Neuville.
Neuville and Tänak have swapped places on every stage so far this morning
Immediately losing second place on the day’s first stage when he half-spun and stalled through a bale chicane, Tänak then took it back on SS10 – only to fall back behind Neuville again on SS11.
Tänak hit back again on SS12 though to head to service a meagre 0.4s clear of the reigning world champion.
“I’ve done quite many mistakes this morning, and we damaged the front bumper so no front aero has been difficult in this high speed,” Tänak lamented.
Neuville wouldn’t be goded into a fight – verbally at least.
“I want to get to the finish and enjoy myself,” Neuville said. “We desperately need some points so it’s more important to be at the finish.”
Kalle Rovanperä finds himself in a spot of no man’s land – 18.0s adrift of third-placed Neuville but 13.1s clear of Adrien Fourmaux in fifth.
Fourmaux has been battling Katsuta hard to retain his top-five spot – less than a second ahead for most of the morning before giving it some “shake and bake” and pulling 2.8s clear before the service halt.
Elfyn Evans is 11.4s further back in seventh, ahead of Toyota team-mate Sami Pajari.
The battle between the three M-Sport drivers in ninth, 10th and 11th has largely been dictated by road position.
Josh McErlean (10th) has pulled clear of team-mate Grégoire Munster who is opening the road, but ninth-placed Mãrtiņš Sesks has, in turn, gapped McErlean.
Robert Virves spent an hour in hospital on Friday evening after feeling unwell with what he suspects was food poisoning, but the Estonian continues to lead WRC2 by 31.9s over Georg Linnamäe.
