During a special stage, he relinquished the lead of the Portugal rally to Ott Tänak. After taking advantage of the retirement of Kalle Rovanperä who made a mistake in the second special stage this Saturday morning, Sébastien Ogier handed over control to the Estonian from Hyundai at the end of the longest stage of the rally (Amarante, 37 km) for… two tenths.
It was only to better take them back an hour and a half later at the end of this loop of four times. In SS13, Tänak suffered a slow puncture and lost almost 14 seconds to Ogier, now the leader with a margin of 13.6 seconds, a chasm on the scale of an extremely tight start to the rally in the top 5 Friday.
But this Saturday, the big clean-up took place with Toyota as the main victim. Kalle Rovanperä, leader and author of a breathtaking first scratch to start the day, made a mistake in the second time trial of the day. His second outing for what is only his third rally this season. And during the next event, it was Takamoto Katsuta who also made a mistake, stopping there for the day. As for Elfyn Evans, he continued to accumulate small problems but regained two places (6th) thanks to the misadventures of his TGR teammates.
Neuville’s little mistake
This also benefited Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo (Hyundai both) and Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) who occupied 3rd, 4th and 5th places in that order. The Belgian still made a small mistake early in the day, damaging the right front of his car and losing time on the rest of the loop. He is now 54” from the head. Sordo is only 3”6 behind him while Fourmaux tries to keep a strong pace to take advantage of the slightest mistake from the drivers in front of him. He is 1’18 behind Ogier.
The WRC2 category also had a crazy morning, especially for the leaders. Oliver Solberg (Skoda), leading at the start on Saturday, went off the road on a bend after seeing Rovanperä’s car in the trees. Then at the end of the loop, it was Yohan Rossel (Citroën), who had taken the lead, who suffered a puncture, leaving Gus Greensmith (Skoda) in charge.
This Saturday afternoon, the same route as this morning is on the program including the 37 km of Amarante, in the heat and on tracks rutted in places after the first passage of the morning.
2024-05-11 11:55:33
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