Kalle Rovanperä has broken Elfyn Evans’ domination of Friday at Rally Estonia, as Oliver Solberg dropped over two minutes after hitting a tree.
Solberg had found himself down in 10th after struggling for grip and ultimately pace across the morning loop.
A front-left puncture compounded the situation on the first stage out of service before it went from bad to worse on SS7, Mustvee 2.
Solberg clipped the inside of a corner and then nosed into a tree on the other side of the road, an impact that broke his power-steering.
“I think it was a tree stump or a rock that got pulled out. I didn’t see it anyway, but I felt it!” he said.
“I lost the power steering. This weekend is not going to plan – it’s getting worse and worse.”
Evans had won all five of Friday’s stages thus far before Mustvee 2, but his stranglehold was broken as first-on-the-road Rovanperä made advantage of his earlier start position with the rain intensifying as the stage wore on.
Rovanperä’s first scratch of the weekend moved him 13.4s clear of home hero Ott Tänak, who lost another 4.3s to his rival on SS6 when he missed a junction.
It means that even without Tänak’s 10s penalty for failing to turn his Hyundai’s engine off in an electric-only zone on Thursday, Rovanperä would be ahead.
The championship leader is now just 14.4s behind Evans overall after beating him by 5.5s, but Evans wasn’t too concerned.
“It was quite slippery, especially towards the end there,” he said.
“I was struggling in the ruts – it’s a very, very soft stage. I didn’t have the best feeling and the rain obviously didn’t help.”
Takamoto Katsuta had a “big hit on the front right” and reduced his pace accordingly after the impact, as his Toyota was no longer tracking straight.
He was still faster than seventh-placed Pierre-Louis Loubet ahead of him anyway, as the windshield wipers on Loubet’s Puma stopped working – a clear problem when rain is falling.
Adrien Fourmaux remains ahead of them both, but there was trouble for his team-mate Gus Greensmith, who wasn’t happy with his Puma Rally1.
“There’s so much mud at the back, it’s hard to see what’s wrong,” he said.
“I’ll have another look but there’s something not right. Maybe the suspension geometry or something.”
Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi both had a drama-free run, but Lappi has extended his advantage over the fifth-placed Hyundai to exactly 10s.
