Rovanpera in control after Ogier exit

World Rally Championship title contender Kalle Rovanpera opened up a healthy 36.3s lead heading into the final day of the Central European Rally after Sebastien Ogier crashed out of the victory battle.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak completed the day as Rovanpera’s nearest rival after edging fellow title contender Elfyn Evans to second spot by 8.4s across the afternoon stages.

Rovanpera started Saturday’s six asphalt stages spread across Germany and the Czech Republic trailing Ogier by 0.6s.

The two-time world champion continued his strong pace in Saturday morning winning stage nine to wrestle the lead away from Ogier to the tune of 0.7s.

The victory battle took a seismic twist in stage 10 as Ogier recorded his first retirement of the season. A rain shower doused the bumpy and challenging Keply test making conditions extremely difficult, but Ogier’s surprising rally exit was traced back to a front-left slow puncture.

His GR Yaris’ tyre pressure alarm system failed to register the tyre failure and when Ogier attempted to navigate a high-speed right hander he understeered wide onto the leaves and into a tree which caused terminal damage. Ogier is however expected to rejoin the rally to fight for Super Sunday points across the final four stages.

“It is hard to take in the moment because I knew it was the most difficult stage in the rain with leaves and we had a good rhythm and it felt good. It is one of those days where you just have to take it,” said Ogier, who started the event with a two-point championship lead over Evans.

“I do not believe I could have done anything different, sometimes it is a matter of luck. The good news is it looks like we can start again tomorrow and then we have only one plan to try and take the 10 Super Sunday points. We will keep fighting.”

Ogier’s retirement shook up the leaderboard, handing Rovanpera a 39.2s lead over Evans, who held onto second by 1.3s from Tanak as the crews reached the midday tyre fitting zone.

With his main rival out of the picture, Rovanpera opted against backing off completely as he maintained a strong pace to return to service after stage 14, held in darkness, with a 36.3s lead.

“It has been a good day. This afternoon was a bit more trickier feeling-wise. In here [the last stage] the condition was also really good, so you just want to go for it, but it’s not so easy at this point. Big day tomorrow, I think the fight is going to be really tight,” said Rovanpera.

Rovanpera’s lead was over Tanak, who despite being not at one with his i20 N, was able to overhaul Evans on stage 12 before going on to extend the gap to 8.4s at the end of the day. Evans made several set-up tweaks to his GR Yaris but couldn’t find the speed to challenge Tanak, and dropped a costly 5.1s to Tanak in the day’s final stage.

Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta ended Saturday’s leg in a comfortable fourth, 58.3s off the lead, boosted by stage wins across both passes of the Klatovy stage. Hyundai duo Adrien Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville were ultimately left frustrated as they struggled to extract the speed from their i20 Ns despite trying a plethora of set-up tweaks.

Fourmaux lost ground in his pursuit of fourth, 39.5s behind Katsuta. A gamble to take three wet tyres helped Neuville claw back some time in the morning. Neuville was faster than Fourmaux across the afternoon, and found some speed on the smoother asphalt on his way to seventh [+2m30.9s] behind Toyota’s Sami Pajari.

M-Sport-Ford’s Josh McErlean was hit by a five-second penalty for clipping a hay bale in a chicane in stage 10 on his way to eighth [+4m39.3s], having delivered much stronger pace compared to Friday. Team-mate Gregoire Munster rejoined the rally after his stage five retirement.

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