Ott Tänak has extended his Rally Portugal lead to seven seconds after Portugal’s arduous Friday, fending off Toyota’s challenge alone after Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux’s earlier retirement.
But the key talking point at the end of the day’s 10 stages was the sheer length of the itinerary: the length of time between checking out of parc fermé in the morning and check-in for service this evening is 15 hours, with another 6am check-out time for the first car tomorrow morning.
Concerns were voiced about the length of the day before the rally started and at the finish line of Friday’s final stage, it was the only topic Kalle Rovanperä was interested in discussing.
“A crazy long day,” said Rovanperä. “I think it’s a bit too long. We are 14 hours in the car and tomorrow we are waking up at 5am again.
“I think in the future we need to see a bit. The point is not that we cannot do it, we can do it, we are here. But at some point it’s a safety issue, everyone is going to be so tired.”
Tänak extends lead as Toyota faces intra-team podium battle
The 2019 world champion, without a win to his name since last October’s Central European Rally, has held a slim lead since Rally Portugal’s second stage.
Tänak’s lead grew when the suspension on Fourmaux’s i20 N Rally1 failed on the second pass of Arganil, and was extended further by stage wins on Mortágua and Sever-Albergaria.
The second of those stage wins marked Tänak’s 400th scratch time in the World Rally Championship.
“Nice number,” said Tänak. “If there would be as many championship titles as well it would be better.”
Takamoto Katsuta had briefly caught and passed Sébastien Ogier for second overall but on Friday’s final loop was far less happy with the feeling aboard his GR Yaris Rally1, losing over 20s to the eight-time world champion and falling into Rovanperä’s clutches.
Rovanperä only needs to find 1.2s tomorrow to move into third place.
Estonian Tänak worked hard all day aboard – and underneath – his Hyundai i20 N Rally1
A stronger afternoon from Thierry Neuville, after time loss from a morning spin, has brought down the gap to the rear of the Toyota peloton to 4.4s, even if he was worried about getting through the Mortágua test in one piece.
“This stage, I have had many bad experiences,” said Neuville of SS11. “I was in rear-wheel drive, I rolled, I spun, I did many things in this stage [in the past]. I’m always a bit afraid about that one but we got nicely through.”
Championship leader Elfyn Evans struggled with his role as roadsweeper on the day’s final two stages, which were single-pass tests. He was passed on the leaderboard by fellow GR Yaris runner Sami Pajari, falling to eighth place, 52.5s off the pace.
Evans admitted that even with his road order disadvantage, he’d failed to make the best of a bad situation.
“We ought to be a bit better than this, I won’t lie,” he said at the finish on the day’s final stage. “A bit of a frustrating day overall.”
Grégoire Munster leads the internal battle of the M-Sport drivers, 4.1s up on Josh McErlean. Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy’s young charge admitted he was struggling to trust his Ford Puma “the last bit” and was being sensible, rather than pushing to find the last bit of speed to propel him further up the stage times.
Mārtinš Sesks wrapped up a challenging day miles down the leaderboard; he’d already lost almost four minutes stopping to change a puncture, then picked up a three-minute penalty after not being ready to set off from the start of the Goís test when at the start line.
M-Sport’s part-timer then ran wide and clattered the same bank Neuville had hit on the morning run of Mortágua, pitching his Puma up into the air. He was lucky to escape mostly consequence-free, only sustaining cosmetic damage; he then backed off for the day’s remaining stages.
“We had enough trouble today,” said Sesks when asked to explain his pace drop-off.
