Ott Tänak’s 15-stage streak at the head of the Rally Portugal field is over, as a power steering failure aboard his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 cost him over half a minute and dropped him to third place.
Midway through the second pass of Amarante Tänak dropped pace, visibly grimacing as he struggled to get the Hyundai turned into corners with no power steering to assist him. Such was the difficulty that co-driver Martin Järveoja resorted to taking over gear changing duties for Tänak.
“Part of the game I guess,” said Tänak, who had tried and failed to repair his faulty power steering in the road section between Amarante and Lousada. “Very unfortunate. We gave everything from our side. What else can I say?”
That promoted Sébastien Ogier to the lead, who had already been fearing the rough and rocky conditions of Saturday’s latter two stages might cause trouble.
“I said to my engineer at the end of the last one, anything can happen in this condition,” said Ogier, his comments transpiring to be awfully prescient.
Ogier admitted yesterday’s marathon 15-hour itinerary had affected him on Saturday – even if he finished the day by winning the Lousada superspecial.
“It’s been a tough rally,” said Ogier. “Today I really fought with my energy level. A lot of drivers mentioned yesterday about the schedule; I felt I managed the day yesterday but today I paid a bit the consequence. Now I feel really low in energy.”
“You know, over 40 [years old], it’s getting harder!”
Kalle Rovanperä moved ahead of Tänak in the process and has 8.5s in hand, though is almost half a minute behind Ogier.
It’s cross-country rallying, it’s not rallying anymore. It’s so rough!Sébastien Ogier
Both of the lead Toyotas had already complained about how rough Cabeceiras de Basto, the second stage of the Saturday afternoon loop, had been.
“I don’t remember when we have seen this rough a stage in Portugal,” said Rovanperä. “So many loose stones, so many holes, big ruts, really rough for the car.
“The car is taking a big beating. I just try to avoid all the hassle, I try to keep everything in one piece as it’s a big stage.”
Ogier concurred, saying: “Horrible stage. It’s cross-country rallying, it’s not rallying anymore. It’s so rough!”
Tänak finished Saturday’s action 8.5s ahead of Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville, who managed to pip Takamoto Katsuta to fourth place at a critical cutoff; the classification after Amarante, not the day-ending superspecial, sets the Sunday road order, so the reigning world champion has one more car ahead of him to clean the road on the final day.
“We tried hard,” said Neuville, who is one second up on Katsuta prior to the Amarante superspecial. “We can see today, every car [through] the road gets faster. So we have to get that position for tomorrow.”
Katsuta though didn’t seem to care, worried more about finding the right feeling aboard his GR Yaris Rally1.
Katsuta was briefly battling Ogier for position on Friday but has gradually fallen back, struggling to match his earlier pace demonstrated on Friday's second loop of stages
“I don’t care about this now,” he said of Neuville pipping him to fourth place. “I’m just focused for tomorrow.”
Sami Pajari continued to pull away from championship leader Elfyn Evans, the gap between sixth and seventh extending to 17.5s.
“Not the speed we wanted to have but that’s how it is today,” said Evans. “We can’t change that now unfortunately, just try to do better tomorrow.”
Josh McErlean is now 28.5s up on Grégoire Munster in the battle to be the best M-Sport driver, with WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg completing the top 10.
That was despite McErlean suggesting he wasn’t pushing the limits, afraid that the rough conditions would break his car: “It’s just hard to trust that you’ll get no punctures or anything with the hard hits,” he said.
“Bit of learning on that, I think you just have to grit your teeth and go flat out. You have to do a mind shift of not caring but obviously you want to protect the car, you want to get the experience.”
Oliver Solberg is on the cusp of breaking his Portugal curse, having led but failed to win the last two editions in WRC2
Gus Greensmith is holding off Yohan Rossel for second place in WRC2, limiting his losses when his intercom failed on the first pass of Amarante and left him driving solely from memory – even if co-driver Jonas Andersson was offering hand signals to assist.
Rossel now trails Greensmith by 5.5s with Sunday’s six stages remaining, with Greensmith admitting he’d prioritized fun over speed on the Lousada superspecial; his flamboyance had cost him 1.8s on the rallycross track.
Crucially for WRC2 leader Solberg, he resisted temptation to do more donuts – the penalty for which cost him victory in 2023.
“If I can’t do donuts, I’ve got to put on a show for the fans,” said Solberg, whose advantage over Greensmith is 50.1s. “I try to go sideways, put a little smoke and have some fun.”
