Rally Estonia: Day 2 Four Toyota Yaris WRC drivers in the top six

Quotes:
Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal)

“The conditions today have been quite tough, and maybe a bit rougher than what we expected. The second time through the stages was really challenging with the ruts and quite a lot of rocks. In the technical low-speed sections we didn’t have so much performance, but we seem to be very good in the high-speed sections and tomorrow should be a faster day overall. The tyre issues that we saw today have been strange: We don't know at the moment what happened to cause it and we need to investigate it. I’m looking forward to seeing what all of our drivers can do tomorrow, including Takamoto who was extremely good today and seems to have really high confidence.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)

“It was a good morning for me. It was fun to drive and the conditions were nice even though we were opening the road and I was quite close to the lead. Unfortunately, this afternoon the car didn’t feel so great, we made a bad call with the setup in the service. It worked in the first stage of the loop because it was a very fast one, but otherwise we were lacking grip this afternoon. I also ended SS7 with a damaged tyre and had no spares for the rest of the afternoon, so I couldn’t push too hard. In the final stage I was really losing the grip from the tyres and I stalled in a junction. But tomorrow is another day! I hope we can have a clean day and let’s see what we can do.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)

“The day started very well for us, everything was working well in the car. Later in the morning I made a few small errors and that cost me my rhythm a little bit. I think the conditions were also very slippery and then I was braking too early or braking too late and it’s very costly when you’re driving like that. In the afternoon, we were nearing the end of the first stage of the loop and the tyre let go. We only lost a few seconds but we had to do the rest of the loop with no spare wheel, so we were trying to balance good speed with not taking crazy risks. We have to keep on it tomorrow and hopefully we can have a good day.”

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)

“Today was really nice, aside from the tyre issue that we had. It was a surprise for us because we didn’t hit anything and I didn’t even feel it for a long time. If you lose a lot of time in this kind of rally it’s not easy to catch up so it was a difficult situation. But otherwise we had a nice pace and I was enjoying the driving. I’m quite happy that I could be on the pace all the time without taking any risks on these fast roads. You have to be really confident here and my confidence in the car is good. Tomorrow we will just continue in the same way and see how it goes.”

What's next?

Sunday concludes the rally with 84.94 competitive kilometres across two loops of three stages. The third and final of these tests – Kambja – will run as the rally-ending Power Stage on its second pass with up to five bonus points on offer for the quickest times.