Toyota Gazoo Racing was well please with their day’s work after Friday’s eight stages on Rally de Portugal.
Wonder boy Kalle Rovanperä was in the lead from their maestro Sebastian Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta was in fine form.
Saturday looked to have more of the same on the menu.
While Tänak looked more at ease with his i20 N and indeed demoting Taka to fourth, it was still a TGR 1-2 with an increased lead between their two stars.
The first to flinch in Saturday’s second stage was Rovanperä, when he misjudged a fast right-hander over a crest, clipping a tree on the outside which sent his Toyota GR Yaris into a roll.
Just 200m further on, Oliver Solberg rolled out of the WRC2 lead, while Tänak, Neuville and Evans spun at the same corner, 2.5kjm into the stage.
Ogier was in the lead with Tänak breathing down his neck 3.4 seconds back with Takamoto in third but with the WRC log leader 14.5 seconds adrift. Things were really coming to the boil…
Move on one more stage and Takamoto was out with rear suspension damage while Tänak drove like a demon to win the stage and become the fifth different leader in 12 stages, albeit by a rather slender 0.2 seconds.
The rally gods were rubbing their hands with glee at the decimation of the Toyota challenge, so their attention turned to Hyundai, and specifically, Ott Tänak who had a left rear puncture and lost 20 seconds, giving Ogier a slight respite with 13.6 seconds in hand.
After the midday service, Tänak set off to undo the damage and won the stage taking 3.2 seconds off Ogier in a thrilling game of cat and mouse, or Toyota and Hyundai if you prefer and sliced another 2.6 seconds off Ogier’s lead one stage later. The Frenchman responded by beating Tänak by 4.1 seconds and another 1.6 on the day’s final gravel stage ahead of the superspecial.
Dani Sordo was holding station in fourth ahead of M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux with Evans unable to catch a break he so sorely needed.
After the final superspecial stage, Ogier held an 11.9 second lead over Tänak, with Neuville nigh on a minute behind but 14.2 seconds ahead of Sordo.
Fourmaux won the final stage of the day and is comfortable in fifth but with a gap of 7.3 seconds to the Spanish Hyundai driver, he is going to push hard to grab another position.
In WRC2, after Solberg rolled, Yohan Rossel was in the pound seats with Gus Greensmith close behind. Until stage 14 that is, when Skoda’s day mirrored that of Toyota and Greensmith beached his car on a bank 3.5km into the stage, leaving Nikolay Gryazin in the lead.
Four stages and 62km remain on Sunday.
