TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team duo Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans will go into the final day of Rally Chile separated by 6.3 seconds after taking charge at the top of the leaderboard in mixed conditions on Saturday.
As on Friday’s opening leg, conditions would again make for a day of two halves for the drivers, with heavy rain creating a muddy and slippery surface for the morning loop of three stages.
Evans excelled in scenes reminiscent of those historically seen on rallies in his native Wales. Having been fifth overall overnight, he stormed to the front of the field with the strongest pace of the frontrunners in the difficult conditions, turning a 13.1s deficit into a lead of 5.6s in three stages.
Ogier, third overnight, felt he had been too cautious in the wettest conditions of the day’s opening stage, but worked his way up into second by the end of the morning.
For the afternoon’s repeat loop, the stages had dried out considerably and tyre management came to the fore once more on the most abrasive roads of the rally. The momentum swung in Ogier’s favour as he claimed a hat-trick of stage wins, edging ahead of Evans after the second test and opening his advantage in the finale.
Evans, running two places ahead of his team-mate on the road, was second fastest in all three afternoon stages and quickest of all across the day. He is 20.5s clear of third-placed Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai).
Sami Pajari also performed strongly in his TGR-WRT2 entry, ending the day in fifth just 8.7s behind Thierry Neuville (Hyundai).
The team’s third championship contender Kalle Rovanperä was quickest across the morning loop, making the most of running at the front of the road order to climb from eighth to sixth in his recovery from running wide and pushing a tyre off the rim on Friday morning. He suffered more with road cleaning as the afternoon wore on and saw the gap to compatriot Pajari increase once more from 16.3s to 32.8s. Takamoto Katsuta ended the day strongly to make it five GR YARIS Rally1 cars in the top seven.
Oliver Solberg continues to lead WRC2 in his Printsport-run GR Yaris Rally2, increasing his advantage to 30.2s as he bids to seal the championship title with a victory.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It was a good day for us. Even in the difficult weather conditions this morning, our drivers were managing well, and in the afternoon they could be even faster. I’m not sure what happened to the others, but we managed to be a lot faster today, so I’m very happy. Seb and Elfyn both drove really well today, and tomorrow they are free to fight and drive as fast as they can. Nothing will be decided before the finish, because they need to drive more than 50 kilometres on these abrasive stages with the same set of the tyres. I must say Sami has done an incredibly good drive so far too, and the gap in front of him is not so big either.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been a very positive day overall today. We had a really good run this morning in difficult conditions. It rained a lot overnight and during the first stage, and it was there where we were able to make the biggest difference, so I was happy with that. This afternoon the tyre wear wasn’t as bad as expected and I was maybe a bit conservative, especially at the start of the loop. Seb’s driven really well and taken some time back, but it’s still pretty close and all to play for tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to the fight.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It was pretty good for us this morning when the rain came: in those conditions it was not so bad to be at the front of the pack and we were able to do some good times and catch up quite a lot. But after all three cars running in front of us dropped out, the afternoon was tough as first car on the road. It was drying up a lot, especially the last stage, and with so much loose gravel we lost a lot of time. Hopefully everyone restarts tomorrow and we have more cars in front of us and we’ll try to get what we can from the final day.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“I can be pleased to be in the lead tonight but not with my whole day. The conditions were not easy this morning and unfortunately I was not in the right rhythm in the first stage. I was just too cautious and lost a lot of time. That was a frustrating start but we managed to react well and find a good rhythm. Elfyn was very strong in those conditions this morning, but we managed to turn it around in the afternoon. Tomorrow will still be very intense: the fight for the win is very much on and there are a lot of extra points to try and secure too. Every stage will be important, so I will need to be awake and on it from the first one.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It was a difficult start today with the conditions. The first two stages of the loop were new for me, and we did the recce for them in fog, so it was not easy to trust the pacenotes and we had to accept that we would lose some time there. The last stage of the loop wasn’t so bad, so I knew that the pace was there, and the speed was quite OK in sections this afternoon too. Overall I can’t be satisfied but the rally is not over yet and I’ll try to make tomorrow a good day.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“This morning the conditions were surprisingly tricky. Like everyone, we were expecting the rain and the muddy sections, but the tyre wear was also quite high and I quickly realised that I had to be clever and not just push like crazy everywhere. I don’t think we did too badly and we were able to catch Thierry a little bit. I was hoping we could have done even more this afternoon, but we do have some new tyres available and will do all we can to try and catch him tomorrow.”
End of day two (Saturday):
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h23m13.9s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +6.3s
3 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +26.8s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +41.7s
5 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +50.4s
6 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m23.2s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m54.3s
8 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m00.4s
9 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +6m12.7s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +6m42.9s
(Results as of 18:00 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
The final day’s action takes place in the same area as Saturday’s to the south of Concepción, with stages utilising some of the same roads. Laraquete and BioBío are both run twice, forming 54.8 competitive kilometres, with the latter’s second pass serving as the rally-ending Power Stage.
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