Kalle Rovanperä continues with a firm step towards victory in the Estonian Rally. The Toyota driver again set the pace on all five stages of Saturday’s afternoon loop to extend his lead over Elfyn Evans to 29.1sec. While Rovanperä is already close to its fifth victory of the season, Ott Tänak closes the provisional podium of the test before his public. Much tighter is the fight in WRC2 between Andreas Mikkelsen and Teemu Suninen, with a difference of 13.8 seconds between the two Scandinavian drivers.
The Estonian Rally has resisted the pilots of the Finnish academy in a historical wayto the point of not having any suomi triumph in its first ten editions. Rovanperä won in 2021 and is on course for his second win in a row in Estonia. Only six stages separate him from success, all after signing four of the five scratch cards at stake on Saturday afternoon. The Toyota driver has only missed the best time of the ‘Tartu’ super special, in which Adrien Fourmaux has had the ‘taste’ of signing the scratch.
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Little history has had the second loop on Saturday afternoon in Estonia in the face of the superiority of Kalle Rovanperä, a seamless leader, even more so when he also recognizes that he is not doing anything special, nothing really special. Given this perspective, Elfyn Evans little more than has been able to bow down to his teammate, knowing that he also has no risk that Ott Tänak could take second place from him. Only an accident or mechanical problem seems likely to prevent Rovanperä from winning or Evans from second place.
In the meantime, Ott Tänak can do nothing to stop the push of the Toyota drivers and at the end of today’s stage he has a disadvantage of more than a minute and 11 seconds compared to the leader. If the 10 seconds for not having used the 100% electric mode in a mandatory zone within a link are eliminated from the equation, the accounts are clear. Ott Tänak has lost more than a minute of real time with Kalle Rovanperä in eighteen stages of his home rally. Quite a blow for the Hyundai driver.
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It’s hard to say when a stage is missing, but the point of greatest interest of the rally seems to be the fight for fifth place between Adrien Fourmaux and Takamoto Katsuta, since the difference in favor of the Japanese is 10.9 seconds. Behind both is Esapekka Lappi after overcoming a very quiet afternoon loop, at least compared to his particular ‘via crucis’ in the morning. Pierre-Louis Loubet continues eighthahead of Gus Greensmith and Andreas Mikkelsen, leader among the ‘Rally2’ in a rally of concentration and regularity.
In the end, the margin for error in WRC2 is minimal as Andreas Mikkelsen only has a 10.6sec lead on Teemu Suninen. Norwegian and Finn are marking the tenth and any small mistake can tip the balance to one side or the other. Marquito Bulacia completes the podium with the Spanish Diego Vallejo as co-driver. The other leader of Rally Estonia is Sami Pajari, the strongest driver in the WRC3 Junior category. The Finn has more than half a minute’s lead over British driver Jon Armstrong.
Classification after SS18 of the 12th Rally Estonia
Rally Estonia ends this Sunday (05:48h) with the dispute of the third stage of the event. Drivers and co-drivers will compete in a total of six specials with 77.98 kilometers against the clock.
Photos: Toyota Gazoo Racing