The second full day of action then dawned bright and sunny and with no rain overnight on the stages, the roads would be dry and covered in gravel for the early crews to sweep clean for the later runners. Takamoto and James would return to the action after their early Friday morning stage one exit.

 

First up then was SS7 Pelún 1 and it was good start for Seb who set the pace from Adrien by 3.4 seconds and Elfyn was third and just one tenth back from the Hyundai driver. Rally leader Oliver was fourth fastest in the stage and saw the gap to the chasers come down a little. There was some drama for three drivers as well. First of all, Josh suffered a puncture on the rear but at least made it to the end. Unfortunately, we did lose Thierry who rolled out of the rally. The pace from Seb saw him take third overall from Adrien as well.

 

Onto SS8 Lota 1 and Seb was again setting the pace from Adrien and Elfyn, and he was opening up the gap to his fellow countryman as they battled over third place. Although Elfyn commented on his lack pace, he did edge a little closer to Oliver who still held the overall lead. There was some drama for Jon sadly as he put his Puma on its side in a partial roll following a collision with a bank on the exit of a corner. They did manage to complete the stage, but with quite a large amount of damage to the front left-hand corner of the car, plus warnings of water pressure in the cooling system, they would retire from the rally. A shame for them as following the exit of Thierry, they were in sixth overall before the stage.

The final morning stage, SS9 Maria las Cruces 1 and Oliver set the pace from Elfyn whilst Adrien was third and retook third place overall from his fellow countryman. The championship leader said he found the pace hard to judge. Oliver continued to lead the rally from Elfyn by 10.1 seconds, whilst Adrien was a further 8 seconds further back from the Welshman.

 

Onto the afternoon stages, SS10 Pelún 2 and Seb was quick in this one from Adrien by 2.5 seconds, with Elfyn a further second back. Seb’s pace took him back into third position and this pace also took him closer to Elfyn for second overall, the gap now just over six seconds between the teammates.

 

The middle afternoon stage, SS11 Lota 2 and Seb was again fastest from Oliver this time and Adrien was third fastest. The gap were really close between Elfyn, Seb and Adrien with Seb now just three tenths behind Elfyn and two and a half seconds between Seb and Adrien. Oliver was going well and holding the lead.

 

Now to the final stage, SS12 Maria las Cruces 2 and Seb set the pace in here before his time was beaten first by Elfyn and then by Oliver giving the top three in the stage. In terms of the overall standings, Oliver was ahead of Elfyn now by almost twenty seconds and then Seb a further second back from his Welshman teammate.

 

Let’s hear from the drivers then and take a look at the top ten.

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Oliver Solberg

“It’s been a great day. I think we’ve found a good balance so far this weekend between risk and reward and taking care of the tyres and choosing when we need to push. I was maybe a little bit careful in the first two stages this morning but could take the time back in the third one, and this afternoon I’m glad we could extend our gap. Tomorrow will still be a tricky day. We just need to prepare well, do a good job and try to have the best Sunday that we can.”

Elfyn Evans

“It’s been quite an OK day for us, but I feel it could have been better. It was a clean day but we were perhaps not quite on the edge enough to keep Oliver honest and keep the gap where we might have wanted it to be tonight. In some stages our rhythm was not the best or we were perhaps too cautious in how we were managing the tyres on these abrasive stages. We just need to keep fighting and try to take as many points as we can from the final day like always.”

Sébastien Ogier

“Overall, I have to be happy with my day. We gave everything and we managed to win both passes of the first two stages. The last stage was the driest and loosest and after a couple of retirements ahead we didn’t have enough cars in front of us to make a clean enough line. I think we maximised our tyre choices by being a bit more aggressive, and I enjoyed the driving today, it was good fun. We’re still in a fight for these podium places; tomorrow is a long day and we will keep pushing.”

Sami Pajari

“This was quite a tricky day for us. Our target was to try and catch the guys in front and the gap was only a few seconds this morning, but for some reason we just didn’t have the pace for that this time. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it goes sometimes in this sport. We need to try to understand why we’re losing time, and otherwise just keep pushing tomorrow and hope that we can take some good points.”

Takamoto Katsuta

“Thanks to the team for getting us back on the road today and for their support and advice after what happened yesterday. The main focus is just getting the feeling back with the driving. It’s not easy to be the first car on the road and cleaning the gravel, but I think our times were quite OK today. There’s still some room to improve and find a better feeling, but so far so good and we try to continue like this tomorrow.”

 

Hyundai Motorsport

Adrien Fourmaux

“We were expecting more tyre degradation this afternoon than there was in the end, so I am happy that we managed our strategy well. At the same time, I am very disappointed to lose eight seconds in the last stage of the day, that was really a shame. The fight is not over yet; I won’t give up tomorrow because there are still a lot of kilometres to go and a new stage too. I am normally pretty good on new stages, and there are only 12s between me and second place, so anything is possible. The long stage tomorrow is the new one and normally there should be bigger time differences on these stages, so we will continue to push hard.”

Esapekka Lappi

“I wouldn’t say that today was a strong day particularly, but it was definitely a better day than I was expecting. We made a few changes overnight to the springs, differential, the anti-roll bar and the ride height and I tried to adapt my driving to the car which seemed to help a bit. There were some initial setup changes that the team suggested, and which had worked here in the past. I had one little spin but other than that, we had a clean day with no issues.”

Thierry Neuville

“I came into a compression slightly too fast, and I got kicked out of the line and we ended up in the middle of the road. We tried to push hard this morning to claim back some positions, that was our target for the day because we had nothing to lose. I underestimated the compression and that was basically the end of it. Luckily, both Martijn and I are fine, but the main thing now is to reset and focus on Sardinia.”

Classification after Day Two

1 O. Solberg E. Edmondson Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 2:17:09.5 2 E. Evans S. Martin Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +19.1 3 S. Ogier V. Landais Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +20.4 4 A. Fourmaux A. Coria Hyundai i20 N Rally1 +31.1 5 S. Pajari M. Salminen Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +1:15.5 6 E. Lappi E. Mälkönen Hyundai i20 N Rally1 +4:10.1 7 J. McErlean E. Treacy Ford Puma Rally1 +5:18.2 8 Y. Rossel A. Dunand Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 +6:54.6 9 R. Virves J. Viilo Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 +7:52.6 10 G. Greensmith J. Andersson Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 +8:20.7

 

Sunday

The final day of this rally will see the crews face 71 kilometres over four stages. The power stage will be the shortest stage of the day at just under nine kilometres with a much longer stage of almost 27 kilometres. This will make the final day more interesting for the crews, particularly given that this longer stage is completely new. It could have a significant effect on the final finishing positions and crucially the championship standings.