Ott Tänak has pulled another couple of seconds clear of Kalle Rovanperä as the pair continue to boss the early phases of Rally Italy.
Rovanperä started the third stage of the rally four seconds adrift of the rally-leading Hyundai and is the only man that’s been able to keep tabs with Tänak thus far.
But the Toyota driver couldn’t prevent Tänak from winning his third Sardinian stage in a row as the 2019 World Rally Champion opened up a six-second lead at the head of the field.
Rovanperä’s run was however blighted by a tire issue: “The feeling was nice in the stage. I was really enjoying it but again we had this delamination on the front tire so that’s really s***.”
Championship leader Sébastien Ogier is just 11.2s adrift of this battle and therefore 17.2s shy of the lead despite opening the road, but he lost his third place to Hyundai’s Dani Sordo on stage three.
Sordo wasn’t entirely happy though, echoing Rovanperä’s woe with the tires.
“I have a little bit of s*** with the tire again, so I need to be careful now,” he said. “I don’t do crazy things until I arrive at service.”
Ogier added: “It’s never that easy to open second loop. I was pleased with the times this morning, I think we’ve done a great job this morning.
“I’m happy with this stage as well but not sure the time will be as good.”
Ogier was indeed correct as he stopped the clocks fifth quickest to slip 1.7s behind Sordo’s i20 Coupe WRC.
Thierry Neuville has moved back past Toyota’s Elfyn Evans into sixth place overall and lurks just 2.1s behind Takamoto Katsuta’s fifth now with a much stronger run on SS3, setting the fourth-fastest time.
For the first time this rally, Neuville was able to outpace Ogier and stole 5.4s from Evans – who again couldn’t match his team-mate – to regain the position he lost on stage two. Neuville is however already 32.2s down on the leader.
Gus Greensmith is already over a minute down on the rally leader and 27.2s behind Evans who is ahead of him on the leaderboard. He feels the lack of a pre-event test may be hampering his charge.
“We took the same set-up as Portugal but obviously we didn’t have a test,” said the M-Sport driver.
“The car was really soft this morning, it was better in there but there’s still a lot to improve on.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet is 16.8s behind Greensmith overall, losing eight seconds to the Fiesta WRC on SS3.
Mads Østberg ceded two seconds to Andreas Mikkelsen in WRC2 but still leads by 16s in the category, holding 10th place overall. Østberg felt he might have been “too careful” while Mikkelsen was “trying to drive clever”.
SS3 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 12m57.4s
2 Dani Sordo/Borja Rozada (Hyundai) +1.2s
3 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +2.0s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +3.5s
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +6.2s
6 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +8.9s
Leading positions after SS3
1 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) 35m21.5s
2 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) +6.0s
3 Sordo/Rozada (Hyundai) +15.5s
4 Ogier/Ingrassia (Toyota) +17.2s
5 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +30.1s
6 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +32.2s
7 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +34.4s
8 Gus Greensmith/Stuart Loudon (M-Sport Ford) +1m01.6s
9 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (Hyundai) +1m18.4s
10 Mads Østberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroën) +1m39.7s
