Sébastien Ogier was a surprise overnight leader at Vodafone Rally de Portugal after Ott Tänak’s hopes of a long-awaited victory were ruined by a power steering failure late on Saturday afternoon.
With an overnight lead of seven seconds over Ogier, Tanak saw his lead shrink on Saturday’s opening test which was won by Ogier to trim the Estonians advantage to 4.4 seconds.
Tänak had led the gravel fixture since stage two on Friday morning and showed steely determination and lightning speed to win three consecutive stages and rebuild his advantage to 13.9 seconds. Heading into the penultimate test, Amarante 2, the Hyundai driver looked firmly in control – but it all came undone on the rally’s longest stage.
A power steering issue struck halfway through the 22.10km test, forcing Tänak to wrestle his i20 N Rally1 to the finish. He dropped over 45sec and relinquished the lead he had fought so hard to build, tumbling to third overall in the process.
Ogier, who had spent most of the day shadowing Tänak, suddenly found himself at the top of the leaderboard. The eight-time world champion and six-time Rally Portugal winner leads the rally by 27.0sec heading into Sunday’s six-stage finale and stands on the verge of a record-extending seventh Vodafone Rally de Portugal triumph.
“It’s not the way you want to win any fight,” said Ogier. “We were both pushing really hard – that’s the game. We tried to keep the pressure on, even if he was a bit quicker. At the end of the previous stage, I actually said to my engineer: ‘Honestly, anything can happen – it’s rough out there. He’s pushing really hard, we need to keep the pressure on.’”
“I’m not happy,” he continued. “I don’t want to celebrate this way. I just hope he can still recover as many points as possible – it’s not over. Tomorrow is a long day.”
Tänak said: “It’s part of the game, I guess. Very unfortunate, but we gave everything from our side.”
Kalle Rovanperä moved up to second, 8.5sec clear of Tänak. The Toyota star had started the day in fourth but overtook Takamoto Katsuta during the morning and gradually pulled clear as the day progressed.
Katsuta’s pace faded in the afternoon, and he dropped behind Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who climbed to fourth on the penultimate stage. The Belgian now trails Rovanperä by 17.0sec, with Katsuta a further 2.2sec back in fifth.
Championship leader Elfyn Evans endured another difficult day and sits seventh overall behind Sami Pajari. After losing time as Friday’s road opener, Evans struggled again to find a rhythm despite a better starting position on Saturday and now trails Pajari by 17.5sec.
Josh McErlean moved up to eighth, edging past M-Sport Ford colleague Grégoire Munster on the opening stage. The Irishman ended the day 28.5sec ahead in their intra-team duel. Oliver Solberg rounded out the leaderboard in 10th and continued to dominate the WRC2 category, maintaining a 50.1sec margin over Gus Greensmith.
