After Elfyn Evans initially made his mark on the Rally Estonia on Friday, Kalle Rovanperä turned up the heat in the afternoon and took the lead
WRC leader Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota) leads the Rally Estonia, round seven of the 2022 World Rally Championship (WRC), after Friday. The Finn ousted teammate Elfyn Evans from the top spot on the final special stage (SS) of the day and has an 11.7 second lead over the Welshman after nine of 24 SS.
Third is local hero Ott Tänak (+44,3 seconds), who is also the best Hyundai driver, after a day that was unfortunate in parts. Fourth place is held by Esapekka Lappi (Toyota, +1:05,9 minutes) ahead of Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), who is already 1:12,9 minutes behind the front runners after a mixed performance.
Adrien Fourmaux (Ford) in sixth and best M-Sport driver, Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota), Gus Greensmith, Pierre-Louis Loubet (both Ford) and Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) leading the WRC2 classification complete the top 10.
Evans had initially dominated the day, winning the first five special stages. After SS 6, his lead over Rovanperä was 19.9 seconds. In the afternoon, however, with heavy rain showers at times, Rovanperä’s disadvantage of opening the stages as WRC leader was no longer so great and the young Finn hit back with three SS wins.
“The afternoon was good. I was happy that we were able to use our starting position a bit better and push a bit more when we had the grip,” said Rovanperä at the finish of the final special stage of the day. Little did he know then that he was to take the lead shortly afterwards, but Evans was doomed by the slippery conditions.
“We were in the bushes right at the start and after that we just had to make sure we got through. In such conditions you can’t do anything,” said the Welshman, who lost 22.6 seconds and thus the lead to Rovanperä due to the mistake.
Tänak is slowed down by fogged up disc
Tänak initially fought toe-to-toe with Rovanperä and Evans on Friday, but then collected a ten-second time penalty for driving with the internal combustion engine running before a time check in a zone where it is mandatory to drive purely on electric power. According to Hyundai team manager Pablo Marcos, co-driver Martin Järveoja was unsure whether to activate electric mode before a climb.
Incredible scenes!
Ott Tanak’s windscreen had been misting up, so his co-driver Martin Jarveoja held up the heater trunking with his foot while reading pacenotes!
Tanak: “Pipe came out. Heater pipe and had no visibility.”
WRC LiveWRC RallyEstonia Autosport pic.twitter.com/nsY1dxX7W3
– Autosport (@autosport) July 15, 2022
On the last special stage of the day, the “Vastsemoisa 2”, which was only 6.7 seconds long, the local hero then lost more than 20 seconds due to visibility problems caused by a windscreen fogging up in the heavy rain. “A pipe of the heater came loose and we had no visibility,” said Tänak. It didn’t help that co-driver Järveoja tried to hold the loose pipe in place with his left foot.
M-Sport suffered another early setback at the Rally Estonia. Craig Breen, who had won the first special stage on Thursday evening, retired on the fourth special stage. The Irishman went off the road in a left-hand bend and damaged the chassis of his Ford Puma in the slip. However, Breen will be back on the grid on Saturday.
Early end to Hayden Paddon’s WRC comeback
The Hyundai camp also had to deal with a setback. On the seventh special stage, Oliver Solberg hit a rock, damaging the steering of his i20 N. Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson managed to repair the defect and finish the day, but with a gap of more than ten minutes they are outside the top 20.
The comeback of former WRC winner Hayden Paddon also ended early. The New Zealander, who last contested a WRC round in the UK in 2019, competed in Estonia in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 in the WRC2 classification. However, he was forced to withdraw from the rally at the lunch break due to a positive COVID-19 test.
On Saturday, crews can expect seven special stages over a total distance of 95.02 kilometres.