THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Toyota’s Elfyn Evans took control of the Croatia Rally after Hyundai’s overnight leader Thierry Neuville crashed out.
The Welshman, who secured his last win in Finland in 2021, led M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak by 25.4 seconds going into the Zagreb-based rally’s final round of four stages, Reuters reported.
Tanak went on a charge and closed the gap from 22.6 seconds to 12.5 at the end of stage 14 but the Estonian then lost time late in the day with technical problems.
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi was in third place, a further 30 seconds back, and eight-times world champion Sebastien Ogier was a distant fourth for Toyota in what is a part-time season for the Frenchman.
Ogier, the championship leader after three rounds, was handed a one-minute time penalty for not having his safety harness correctly fastened while the car was moving on stage two.
He collected a further 10-second penalty for checking in late for the opening stage.
Neuville had started the day 5.7 seconds clear of Evans but his hopes disappeared when he skidded off the slippery asphalt on the 11th stage, the third of the day’s eight.
The Belgian clipped a concrete block with the rear left of the car and then hit roadside trees, causing too much damage for the crew to continue.
Hyundai are competing with a special tribute livery to their Irish driver Craig Breen who died in a testing crash in Croatia last week.
Ogier was 2.6s faster than Neuville, second on the road, although the Belgian was struggling with the handling of his car, admitting at stage end that he ”was fighting the car” and had a “big job” to do to reach the finish.
The road conditions became increasingly worse after every pass with the next fastest being Tanak, who was 10.5s slower, although some of the time loss was down to a stall at a tight hairpin left.
“I was losing the boost and then I stalled,” said Tanak. “After that I really struggled with many things. We got some steering issue already on the road section.”
Rovanpera was 0.8s slower than the Estonian as he struggled to extract speed from his GR Yaris.
The Finn’s rally hopes would take a more decisive blow on the next stage as he and Ogier suffered a tyre deflation, which appeared to be caused by the same pot hole 12km into the 25km test.
Ogier lost the rally lead as he dropped 1m32s in the test, but incredibly was able to change his damaged wheel and tyre in little over a minute.
“I avoided the cuts as much as I could but it was just the compression that made the puncture. What can I do?,” said Ogier.
Ogier bounced back to win stage 3 as he pipped Neuville by 0.8s, with Evans lucky to be third fastest after suffering from a slow puncture towards the end of the test. Tanak kept himself in the mix as he battled his Puma to clock a time, 0.5s slower than Evans.
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