Ott Tänak has wrestled the lead of Rally New Zealand off Craig Breen with fastest time on the final stage of Friday morning as Elfyn Evans now shares second overall with Breen.
Damp conditions have presented Tänak, second car on the road, with an opportunity as the effect of running towards the head of the running order has been far less profound.
Although he lost his rally lead to Breen after the day’s opener, Whaanga Coast, Tänak set the same time as his former team-mate on SS3 and found another 5.9 seconds on him on Te Akau North to move into a 2.6s lead.
Evans was third fastest on SS4, 0.8s down on Tänak and a tenth behind his championship-leading team-mate Rovanperä, to draw level with Breen in the overall standings.
M-Sport’s Gus Greensmith finds himself fourth overall, nine seconds shy of the lead as he outpaced his team-mate Breen by just three tenths on Te Akau North.
It’s been a positive morning for M-Sport overall, but the twisty Whaanga Coast definitely suited the Puma Rally1 the best as Greensmith and Breen’s pace dropped a bit on the two Te Akau tests.
“I couldn’t really carry the speed in this stage,” Greensmith said, “but I’m happy with the rest of the morning.”
Rovanperä can wrap up the world title if he outscores Tänak by seven points this weekend, but the Toyota driver isn’t currently on course to do that – down in sixth with Tänak heading the field. The difference between the pair is just 10.7s though.
Sébastien Ogier, contesting his first WRC rally since June, is one second ahead of Rovanperä overall in fifth place – not quite in the devastating rhythm that saw him claim eight world titles as he battled to get back into a competitive rhythm.
“It’s all OK but we need to go faster this afternoon,” Ogier confessed.
While the top six is covered by just under 11s, a massive gap has formed back to the rest of the pack – and unusually Thierry Neuville is among the group that’s languishing back.
Neuville struggled with the rear-end grip on Whaanga Coast, spun on Te Akau South and then spun again Te Akau North – this time going too sideways through a sweeping, cambered right-hander and almost nosing off the edge of the road.
The time loss wasn’t too large though, but the difficult morning has left the Hyundai driver some 40.9s off the lead after just four of the event’s 17 stages.
“It’s very hard to keep the car in the line,” Neuville said. “I’m not sure if it’s the dampers or the suspension, but I’m not sure what we can do now. We will continue to lose time.”
Takamoto Katsuta has had similar struggles too, admitting “the car is great, not me” as he too struggled to find a rhythm.
Oliver Solberg’s Hyundai is 2.6s behind Katsuta’s Toyota in ninth overall, while runaway WRC2 leader Hayden Paddon completes the top 10.
With no service interval, crews now head into a tire fitting zone where they can of course fit new boots and execute any repairs but only with parts that they carried with them in the car.
