With just the super special stage remaining on Saturday, Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen won every stage of the day, giving the rally leader not only a full house of 12 stage wins out of 12, his lead extended to an impressive 45.7 seconds ahead of Sebastian Ogier, who eased away from Elfyn Evans who was 23 seconds adrift in third.
The morning loop of the longest day of the rally saw ‘business as usual’ at the head of the leaderboard. Rovanperä won all three of the morning stages to extend his lead over Sebastian Ogier to 36.9 seconds.
Ogier ran Rovanperä close in the two opening tests, finishing one second adrift in SS7 and 0.7 seconds in the following stage. Rovanperä re-asserted his mastery in the final stage before service, hustling his GR Yaris through the 23.3km test 8.4 seconds quicker than anyone else.
Elfyn Evans maintained his third position in something of a no-mans-land; too far behind Ogier to challenge for second and well ahead of Toyota’s rising star, Sami Pajari. Stage eight saw the top four Toyotas covered by 1.2 seconds, with Pajari snapping at Evans’ heels on occasion, finishing stage eight and nine 0.4 seconds behind the championship leader on both occasions.
Takamoto Katsuta got in on the action as well, setting the third best time in SS9 but remained behind Pajari in the overall standings.
Adrien Fourmaux was once again the quickest Hyundai and pushed his teammates down the order as he re-claimed sixth overall. Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak were still experiencing handling issues and languished in seventh and eighth. They set near-identical times in stage eight but were still only seventh and eighth quickest.
M-Sport Ford’s duo of Grégoire Munster and Joshua McErlean were mired at the foot of the Rally1 standings, battling their ill-handling Pumas.
After the service break the order remained unchanged with one difference. Evans only set the sixth fastest time, beaten by Pajari, Katsuta and Fourmaux in stage 10.
Munster was a little optimistic in stage 11, hustling his recalcitrant Puma too fast into a corner 3.5km into the stage. He missed a tree by millimeters but beached himself in a clump of thick bamboo and lost three minutes as spectators battled to manhandle the car back onto the road.
Stage 12 brought disaster for Sami Pajari; with a split time well up on Katsuta, he understeered into a barrier around 20km into the stage and damaged the right front corner of his Yaris. Game over.
The fight in WRC2 was intense: Yohan Rossel still led but he was under attack from Alejandro Cachón and Nikolay Gryazin. Rossel’s lead was down to 14.8 seconds after the morning loop but by close of business ahead of the super special stage, the French ace’s lead was back to 20.5 seconds.
The final 1.8km stage brought an end to Rovanperä’s rout. Evans took the stage win from Ogier with Neuville tied on time with Rovanperä.
Five stages and 58km remain with ten bonus points up for grabs.
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