Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm brought their Hyundai i20 N home after Rally Sweden’s seven Saturday stages with a comfortable 66 second lead over second-placed Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria’s M-Sport Ford Puma who held off Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin’s Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris in a tense battle for the podium places.
The anticipated fight between Lappi and Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta fizzled out when the Japanese star buried his Yaris deep in a snowbank 3.4km into the tenth stage chasing down the 0.9 second gap to the Finn.
A dejected Katsuta said: “We did an okay time on the first one to gain the time and a much closer gap between me and EP [Lappi]. I wanted to continue pushing, maybe even more to gain more time but obviously I was trying very hard, and [in] one corner I carried a bit too much speed and snapped the rear and hit the snowbank. We were stuck and couldn’t get out.”
With a lead of 1:31.6, Lappi immediately backed off, ending the next five stages in fifth, third, fourth, sixth and fourth, giving away 25 seconds to the French Ford driver, who put in the drive of the day.
“Sure it is harder {now mentally}, said the Finn after stage 11. “I was over safe but I don’t know what else I should do. The time is what it is. We are not touching the banks.”
Fourmaux set the fastest time in stage 11 as he fought off the attack from Evans with the gap hovering between 13 and 16 seconds throughout the day.
Fourmaux was extremely lucky to survive a heart-stopping moment in the final stage when he almost buried his Puma in a snowbank right next to his teammate Grégoire Munster, who’d locked up and went into the snow nose first, losing 15 minutes as the crew dug their stranded car out.
“I’ve seen the video [of Munster] and I thought it was the corner before,” Fourmaux said. “When I realised they were there it was too late. What a good day, a rollercoaster, up and down, but I’m happy, P2.”
Evans ended third, 59 seconds up on Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe in the Hyundai i20 N, who’d started the day in 11th after incurring a time penalty on Friday, winning three stages on his way to hauling himself into fourth overall.
Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Hälttunen and Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja ended the day in 21st and 22nd places respectively and each won a stage. Their job was to bring their cars home with no damage in order to attack “super Sunday” where 12 points are available including the five for winning the Wolf Power Stage.
WRC2 cars filled fifth to tenth positions on the final overall leaderboard, headed by Oliver Solberg/Elliot Edmonson in their Skoda Fabia, 1:14 ahead of the Toyota of Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen.
Friday’s sensation Georg Linnamäe spun right at the end of stage 11, dropping from second to fourth in the WRC2 standings. After the morning loop, Pajari, Roope Korhonen, Linnamäe and Mikko Heikkilä were separated by a handful of seconds.
Korhonen slipped behind Linnamäe in stage 14 after Korhonen’s slow time; “I think we have killed our tyres”.
In the Junior WRC, Mille Johannson leads Romet Jürgenson by 55 seconds.
Conditions were typical Swedish rally, nice and grippy in the morning and a churned up mess in the afternoon which played havoc with the studded tyres, leaving everyone fighting for grip with the lost or blunted tungsten studs past their sell-by date. Every single driver mentioned tyre preservation and grip levels at the end of the afternoon’s four stage loop.
The final day may only have three stages but they contain 61km of racing, which is all that separates Lappi from his first WRC win in six years and his second career victory.
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