Ott Tänak has responded to Craig Breen with his first stage win since rejoining M-Sport, but Breen’s lead remains healthily intact.
Breen has been in majestic form on Friday afternoon, winning the loop’s first stage by 7.8 seconds and the second by 2.6s.
That earned him a 10.5s advantage over Tänak ahead of SS7 but the 2019 world champion hit back on the day’s penultimate test, outpacing Breen by 4.1s.
“I think at this point you can’t attack too much,” Tänak said, “it’s 4km and then the tires are finished. We were just managing it through the stage.”
Managing it or not, he’s trimmed Breen’s lead to 6.4, and for the first time this weekend Breen wasn’t entirely happy as he was trying to save his tires, battling with “understeer in places you don’t want to be having it”.
Kalle Rovanperä has continued to lose time hamstrung with opening the road and is therefore now 7.5s behind his team-mate Elfyn Evans.
But Evans wasn’t going forwards either – a damaging five second time loss to third-placed Esapekka Lappi extending the gap between the pair to 13.8s.
Thierry Neuville got away with one on Friday’s penultimate stage, running into a snowbank but emerging from it with nothing but dented pride and some time loss.
But it’s been a frustrating afternoon for the Hyundai driver who’s been frustrated by understeer; not helped by half of his front bumper missing.
“I did what I could, I did what I could,” he stated. “Without the aero in the fast I had a hell of [a lot] of understeer and the tires went off quickly, but actually it was a push.”
Neuville’s rooted in sixth overall, 26.9s ahead of seventh-placed Pierre-Louis Loubet who’s not troubling the leaders but not making mistakes either.
Loubet was without his hybrid unit on SS7 though – not ideal on a stage so flat out.
