TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team ended the longest and most demanding day of Rally Chile with Kalle Rovanperä leading team-mate Elfyn Evans in a one-two with one day to go.
With 139.2 competitive kilometres to be driven across two loops of three stages, Saturday presented the crews with more technical and abrasive gravel roads as well as a change in weather conditions compared to Friday, with fog and rain adding to the difficulty.
Leading by three seconds at the start of the day, Evans continued his strong form in the morning with two stage wins out of three. Rovanperä took second place and closed to within 1.8s of his team-mate when he went quickest by 9.7s in the second stage of the morning, but Evans responded by going 8s quicker than anyone in the following test where rain and fog hit and tyre management proved key.
Evans further added to his lead with another stage win at the start of the afternoon, but the most demanding conditions were still to come in SS11. Increasingly heavy fog severely reduced the visibility for drivers running further back in the reversed road order and Rovanperä came through quickest of the leaders, allowing him to take the lead by 5.5s over Evans.
Rovanperä would extend his advantage to 15.1s in a damp final stage, with Evans in turn increasing the gap to third-placed Ott Tänak (Hyundai) to 18.5s.
Sami Pajari continued his learning on his second event driving the GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID, showing a mature approach to avoid issues in the challenging conditions to end the day in sixth position overall.
Sébastien Ogier was looking to fight back from time lost on Friday and made a strong start to the day despite a tough road position, setting the second-best time in SS7. He was maintaining similar pace in SS8 until an impact with a rock damaged the front-right suspension and forced him to stop. The team has repaired the car ready for a restart on Sunday.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“I must say that we are really satisfied with our performance today. Kalle and Elfyn have been doing an amazing job and driving really well. The conditions have been very tough but they have both shown that if you manage it, you can make big time differences. We’re also really happy with how Sami has been performing. The most important thing for him is to get the experience, so he took it carefully in the fog because feeling the limits of the car is more difficult in such extreme conditions, and that is the right approach for him. It was disappointing for Seb that he had to stop this morning, but he will be back tomorrow and I know his motivation will be high because he’s been driving extremely fast so far this weekend.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“Overall it’s been a positive day for us. The feeling was definitely better than yesterday. As I expected, the tyre wear was a big factor this morning and on the last stage it was a challenge to keep the pace until the end of the loop. Then we could gain something in the afternoon when the weather got a bit damper and trickier. I would say it was the foggiest conditions I’ve ever driven a rally car in, but we managed it well: we could keep it quite safe and still have good pace. There’s still a long day to go tomorrow and it will be important to secure this one-two for the team and also try to bring as many points as we can from the last day.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“I think we can be pretty pleased with our performance today. We had a good morning loop – maybe just a bit careful on the middle stage managing the tyres. The afternoon was tougher. It started off pretty well in the first stage of the loop but then we hit very bad fog on the second one, where we couldn’t even see the edge of the road. It was very difficult and we lost a lot of time there. We also fitted our soft tyres there and couldn’t really make use of them, whereas Kalle used his on the last one where it was wetter and did a great job to take advantage. That was a bit of a double whammy for us, but overall it’s been going well and we’ll try to carry on the same way tomorrow.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“With the time we lost yesterday we had to push this morning and starting near the front we knew we would have to face tough conditions. We made a brave tyre choice and I think it was working well. Unfortunately, very close to the end of SS8, there was a rock in my line and we clipped it in the wrong moment when the front of the car was fully loaded under braking, and it damaged the suspension. It’s not what any of us wanted and it’s two rallies in a row where we had amazing speed and we didn’t convert it. It’s frustrating but we’ll be back tomorrow and I hope my team-mates can still bring a strong result for the team.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“Today the stages were more technical and something new for me to learn driving the Rally1 car. The conditions were also really tricky already in the last stage of the morning and especially this afternoon. In SS11 I was expecting some fog but I was surprised just how bad it was. I decided to just try and drive clever in those conditions, as it would be so easy to make a silly mistake because you can only see a few metres in front. Still we could enjoy some sections today: the first stage of the afternoon was really good and the last one was also going better even in damp conditions. The car has been really nice to drive the whole weekend and I’m sure we can have a good feeling again tomorrow.”
End of day two (Saturday):
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 2h25m14.3s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +15.1s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +33.6s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +43.7s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1m23.0s
6 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1m49.5s
7 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1m50.6s
8 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +5m14.6s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +6m28.2s
10 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +6m45.0s
39 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1h27m11.3s
(Results as of 20:00 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
The final day’s action again takes place in the forests south of Concepción, where a pair of stages will each be run twice using roads that were mostly last used in 2019. The second pass of the Bio Bio test serves as the rally-ending Power Stage with up to five extra points on offer for the fastest crews.
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