Ott Tänak has taken the stage win on the second pass of Vinski Vrh – Duga Resa to close the gap down to Elfyn Evans by 3.4 seconds
Evans’ advantage was 15.9s heading onto SS14 but Tänak has been on the hunt throughout the day.
Narrowing the gap on the first stage of the afternoon, the M-Sport driver kept that form up and has now closed it down to 12.5s overall.
“It [stealth mode] has been activated since the first stage, no question,” he said.
“These last two stages the car has been working well so it’s been a good rhythm.
“[We’re] On the limit, definitely on the limit.”
Following his brief spin on the afternoon’s first stage, Esapekka Lappi had a cleaner run this time around, and is still comfortably in third place, 1m05.3s ahead of Sébastien Ogier.
But Ogier will now be looking over his shoulder. He was 1.2s down on Kalle Rovanperä at the first split, but despite edging that back towards his favor at the next split, he finished SS14 1.2s off his team-mate.
That brought the overall gap between the pair down to just 3.7s in a battle which has been coming up to the boil all day.
After a troublesome Friday and issues on Saturday morning, Ogier is keen to get through this loop without a hitch.
“It was surprisingly slippery in some corners,” he explained.
“I didn’t expect it, but all okay. I hope for once I can have a trouble-free loop, so let’s see. Two stages to go.”
Rovanperä’s charge back up the field continued as he moved up to fifth in the standings – surpassing Pierre-Louis Loubet who also lost out to Ogier on the previous stage.
Loubet is the only driver to take six hard tires this afternoon, and said it was tough to keep his Ford Puma Rally1 under control in some of the corners.
“The rear of the car [was] moving around and it was very tricky,” he said. “But okay, we are through.”
He’s now sixth and 7.9s ahead of Takamoto Katsuta who remains seventh.
