Toyota teammates Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans engage in a thrilling duel for victory at Rally Portugal – Ogier and Loeb out of luck
The battle for victory at the Rally Portugal, round four of the 2022 World Rally Championship (WRC), is turning into a duel between the two Toyota team-mates Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans. Both engaged in a thrilling duel on Saturday in partly rainy and thus slippery conditions, in which the gap swung back and forth, but in which Evans always had the upper hand until the penultimate special stage of the day.
But on the second run of SS “Amarante”, which at 37.24 kilometres is the longest of the rally, Evans then lost 14.9 seconds to Rovanperä and thus relinquished the lead to his Finnish team-mate.
“Kalle was definitely strong. I think for us it was the worst here, it was raining very hard. I had a very close moment with a tree just after the start. It wasn’t nice and it didn’t help,” said Evans.
Tight duel Rovanperä vs Evans
After 15 of 21 special stages, Rovanperä’s lead over Evans is 4.0 seconds. Takamoto Katsuta currently completes a Toyota triple lead, but with a gap of 1:37,6 minutes to the front he can no longer intervene in the fight for victory on his own.
On the other hand, the Japanese driver was in control of veteran Dani Sordo (Hyundai) on Saturday. The Spaniard had started the day in third place, but steadily lost time to Katsuta and is currently 14.6 seconds behind him.
Fifth is Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), who worked his way back to the front with strong times after the driveshaft problems on Friday. Craig Breen, Pierre-Louis Loubet (both Ford), Ott Tänak (Hyundai), Adrien Fourmaux (Ford) and Teemu Suninen (Hyundai) as leader of the WRC2 classification complete the Top 10.
Loeb and Ogier also eliminated on Saturday
WRC stars and part-time drivers Sebastien Loeb (Ford) and Sebastien Ogier (Toyota) each failed to make it far on Saturday in their second start of the season following Friday’s retirements. Their drive came to an end after the second special stage of the day.
Loeb had to distract his Ford Puma after a drive defect, Ogier’s car had slid off the road. that he had been distracted by a technical problem and that was why he had made this driving mistake.
“A few hundred metres before the accident, we lost the hybrid,” Ogier explained. “I was looking at the screen, lost concentration and didn’t listen to the announcement for the next corner. I came in a bit too fast, hit the embankment and spun. That was my mistake.”
A 3.3-kilometre short spectator stage is on the agenda to conclude Saturday’s action from 20:03. On Sunday, the crews can expect five special stages over a total distance of 48.87 kilometres.
