Ott Tänak has claimed just his second stage victory of Rally Estonia, his home round of the World Rally Championship, as Kalle Rovanperä extended his lead over Craig Breen by another few seconds.
Tänak is starting Saturday’s stages second on the road due to retiring on Friday with three punctures across two stages.
The 2020 event winner was second fastest on the first stage this morning behind a blisteringly quick Rovanperä, but Tänak managed to beat the Toyota driver by 0.3 seconds on SS11 to claim the stage win.
Tänak’s isn’t Rovanperä’s concern however, and the 20-year-old managed to pull away by another 2.8s from Breen, who he is disputing the lead with, to establish a 25.6s advantage.
“On this one I was clearly not so good, but it’s going quite well,” he surmised. “Let’s see on the next ones what we can do.”
Breen’s description of the stage was: “[I was] very much in the middle of the road. I put all I had in the first stage this morning, I probably took some risks and Kalle did an incredible job.
“I just need to keep the pressure on. For myself and Paul [Nagle], two part-timers, we’re doing alright.”
Thierry Neuville’s fight for third with Sébastien Ogier lives on as he bettered Ogier by half a second to extend his overall advantage to 5.9s
Elfyn Evans managed to get the better of Ogier as well on SS11 – albeit only by 0.7s to narrow the time gap between the pair slightly to 17.8s.
However, Ogier finds himself in a slightly precarious position as he will leave Estonia as the championship leader regardless of what happens, and his two rivals are only set to make marginal gains – if at all – on him as it stands.
“I will need to push more for sure, I’m a bit careful at the moment,” Ogier said, conflicted in his mind as to how to attack the stages.
“But the thing is I don’t need to take all these risks. I don’t know, for sure I can do more.”
Neuville, who is currently 56 points behind Ogier in the standings, had a different tactic.
“I have to keep in front of him [Ogier], I try to do that,” he said. “I had a clean run through and obviously it was enough.”
Following a brief stall and off-road moment on the previous test, Teemu Suninen admitted SS11 was “a bit easier” than the stage that preceded it.
The M-Sport driver was 1.1s faster than his team-mate Gus Greensmith who was the first car to begin the stage, and around 10s quicker than seventh-placed Pierre-Louis Loubet, one position behind him.
Photo: M-Sport World Rally Team
That suited Loubet though whose objective is clear: to finish.
“[It’s] difficult to be really free in the car,” he said. “I just try to do what I have to do, the target is to finish, it’s pretty important after all that’s happened.”
Andreas Mikkelsen responded to the threat of Mads Østberg who made some big advances on Saturday’s opener to move into second in class.
But Mikkelsen beat him by 4.1s and Nikolay Gryazin was 1.4s quicker to close up to 3.7s behind, third in class. Østberg clearly wasn’t happy though.
“This rally is not under my control at all, it will just be a coincidence if the car is working on every stage,” he said, strongly.
“As soon as there are changeable conditions the car is impossible to drive.”
He remains 10th overall behind Mikkelsen in ninth and WRC3 leader Alexey Lukyanuk who’s an excellent eighth, despite head-butting a haybale and emerging victorious at the end of SS11.
SS11 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 6m26.2s
2 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +0.3s
3 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +3.1s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +3.8s
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +4.0s
6 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +4.5s
Leading positions after SS11
1 Rovanperä/Halttunen 1h26m08.3s
2 Breen/Nagle +25.6s
3 Neuville/Wydaeghe +1m13.3s
4 Ogier/Ingrassia +1m19.2s
5 Evans/Martin +1m37.0s
6 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +4m19.9s
7 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (2C Competition Hyundai) +4m42.3s
8 Alexey Lukyanuk/Yarislav Fedorov (Škoda) +5m15.0s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (Škoda) +5m38.1s
10 Mads Østberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroën) +6m10.7s
