At the end of the first loop of the first day, Kalle Rovanpera is leading Rally Sweden with Oliver Solberg and Elfyn Evans following him.
Kalle Rovanpera is in first position overall at the end of Stage 3 as he set the fastest time in that stage.
Oliver Solberg is second overall and his gap from Rovanpera is at 10,4 seconds.
Elfyn Evans completes the top three despite the fact that the rear left bumper was missing after Stage 1. He will fight with Solberg for the second position on the afternoon loop as their gap is only at eight tenths of a second.
Thierry Neuville comes right behind Evans with their being at one second. The Belgian driver faced some electrical problems in Stage 2 and 3 as he said that the battery pack was not working in Stage 2 and had to turn on the emergency. However, he did not drop so much time due to the fact that Stage 2 was red flagged and he was driving on the road mode.
Ott Tanak completes the top five and set the fastest time on the opening stage of Rally Sweden. However, he said at the end of Stage 2 that he was struggling with the balance of his Hyunda i20N Rally1 while he dropped 11 seconds in Stage 3 due to the fact that the front bumper was missing.
Esapekka Lappi is in sixth position overall and he is only two tenths of a second behind Tanak. The Finn driver set the fastest time in Stage 2 and was leading Rally Sweden after this stage win, but he dropped five places at the end of Stage 3 as he stalled at the start of SS3 resulting in losing 15 seconds.
Takamoto Katsuta is seventh overall and he stayed out of trouble on the morning loop of the first day of Rally Sweden.
Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux and Ole Christian Veiby from WRC2 complete the top ten.
Greensmith dropped 21,2 seconds in Stage 1 as he outbraked himself entering a square right and had to stop and to reverse. In addition to that, he faved some problems with his Ford Puma Rally1 as he reporetd at the end of Stage 3 that he had no hybrid power and gearbox issues.
Craig Breen was forced to retire on Stage 2 as he was stuck on snow. In fact, he had two incidents with the snow banks. The first one happened when he overcooked a right-hander and run into a snow bank on the outside, but he managed to continue and there was a damage to the front left of his Puma after this contact. The second one was serious as he went off into another snow bank resulting in being stuck on the snow.
After the second incident of Breen, Stage 2 was red flaged meaning that Takamoto Katsuta, Thierry Neuville and Gus Greensmith had to drive on road mode. These three drivers received a notional time before the start of Stage 3.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch the overall classification after SS3:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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