Ott Tänak has snatched third place from Elfyn Evans on Rally México after Saturday’s first stage, as Sébastien Ogier extended his lead of the rally handsomely with a blistering run.
Tänak and Evans started the day separated by just 0.2 seconds, in Evans’ favour, but the defending world champion struck back immediately and beat Evans by 1.6s to take third place, holding a 1.4s advantage overall.
“For sure I keep going,” said Tänak. “This morning I started a bit more steady and it was a very clean run so we try to build on this.”
Evans offered: “They all count so we have to try and do what we can everywhere.”
Teemu Suninen’s second place had looked under threat in the early splits, but the M-Sport driver hit back towards the end of the stage to beat Evans’ time by 0.1s. His gap over third-placed Tänak stands at 18.7s.
Ogier has put daylight between himself and Suninen however, with a time that was an incredible 9.7s quicker on Guanajuatito. But the six-time champion thought he was about to lose time to his rivals.
“Honestly not I don’t know why [I managed this time],” he explained. “The car feels good but the engine feels low [on] power, but it looks like it’s not. I had a weird feeling with the power but obviously all good because the time is good.”
Ogier’s performance means his lead has ballooned from 13.2s to 22.9s.
Kalle Rovanperä was 2.5s adrift of Evans and 2.3s away from Tänak at the start of Guanajuatito but slipped backwards on Saturday’s opener. The Toyota driver reckoned his road position wasn’t helping so predicted an increase in pace this afternoon.
“It will be difficult at least on the first loop as we are cleaning more than them,” he said, referring to Evans and Tänak. But his stage wasn’t perfect either. “Here I was too cautious in some slow and tricky places.”
Rovanperä is currently 10.2s behind Tänak after losing 8.9s on SS13.
Gus Greensmith continues to hold sixth for M-Sport, setting a time 39.7s shy of the pace as he looks to build his speed on his WRC debut in México. He is 1m3.7s behind Rovanperä.
Thierry Neuville returned to action after retiring on Friday’s final gravel stage with an electrical issue. The Belgian was philosophical at the end of the stage, burdened with cleaning the road for his competitors on Saturday.
“We should be in the fight for victory but that’s part of this sport,” he said. “It’s cruel sometimes and hard to accept but together as a team we’re going to fight and definitely improve.”
Neither Dani Sordo nor Esapekka Lappi restarted on Saturday.
Despite not being “happy with his drivng”, Nikolay Gryazin nicked 2.5s from Pontus Tidemand in the duo’s battle for WRC 2 honours. However Gryazin remains 48.6s back in eighth overall and second in class.
Leading positions after SS13
1 Ogier (Toyota)
2 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +22.9s
3 Tänak (Hyundai) +41.6s
4 Evans (Toyota) +43s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +52.8s
6 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +1m56.5s
7 Tidemand (Škoda) +5m39.5s
8 Gryazin (Hyundai) +6m28.1s
9 Bulacia (Citroën) +7m46.9s
10 Fernández (Škoda) +10m27.5s
