Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm ended their 6½ year victory drought in fine style in Sweden, taking a comfortable half a minute victory and Hyundai’s second win on the trot at the second round of the FIA World Rally Championship.
Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin made short work of taking second place away from Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria in the first stage on Sunday, demoting M-Sport Ford’s pairing to third, which was inconsequential to the Frenchmen who stayed calm to claim their first ever WRC podium.
While all three manufacturers were represented on the podium, it was Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe in fourth, who goes away with the lead in the WRC standings while the Manufacturers’ Championship is a tie between Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT and Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Evans lost the Wolf Power Stage top spot by 0.039 seconds after clipping a snowbank in the third last corner of the stage, handing the extra point to his teammate Kalle Rovanperä.
The Super Sunday points allocation which awards points to the top seven fastest drivers across the final day’s stages saw Evans bank the seven bonus points
Two of the favourites for victory, Kalle Rovanperä and Ott Tänak both crashed out in the same stage on Friday, leaving Takamoto Katsuta briefly in the lead.
Katsuta, gunning for victory against Lappi on Saturday, crashed out in stage 10.
Home hero Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson took a comfortable win in WRC2 powering their Toksport-run Skoda Fabia to a 1 min 19.7 second victory over Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen in their Toyota Yaris Rally2.
Such was the dominance displayed by young Solberg that he held third in the overall standings on Friday night and finished fifth overall after a perfect weekend.
The WRC2 podium fight between Pajari and Estonian Georg Linnamäe and Brit co-driver James Morgan in their Yaris Rally2 went down to the wire.
The Finns only had 4.8 seconds in hand before the final 10km stage and were ragged through their run, dropping 2.3 seconds to their rivals to take second position by 2.5 seconds.
Read Motorsport Monday tomorrow for the full rally report
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