Ypres Rally - 2nd Day - 1st Loop: Neuville carries a 16-second lead after a frantic Saturday morning [+video]



At the end of the morning loop of the second day, Thierry Neuville is still leading Ypres Rally with Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans following him.

Thierry Neuville remains out in front after the end of this morning loop as he set the fastest time in Stage 11 and 12. However, he lost his lead over Ott Tanak at the end of Stage 9 and was behind the Estonian for only one tenth of a second.

Ott Tanak dropped to second from first place at the end of Stage 11 as he reported a transmission issue which hit him in Stage 10 and in the next stages. He was lucky in SS11 as he survived from a slide.

Elfyn Evans completes top three and his gap from the second position is at 5,3 seconds after Tanak suffering from some issues.

Esapekka Lappi remains fourth and was defending his place over Craig Breen until the start of Stage 10.

Adrien Fourmaux climbed to top five after Breen's retirement and moved ahead of Oliver Solberg at the end of Stage 11. However, he slid into a ditch in Stage 10, but a well-placed hay bale bounced his Puma back onto the road. For now, he is the best driver for M-Sport Ford.

Oliver Solberg follows the M-Sport driver for 4,5 seconds and he was struggling with the understeer of his i20N.

Takamoto Katsuta is now seventh and he said at the end of SS10 that he had no hybrid boost, but thankfully he had hybrid power in the next stage.

Gus Greensmith was sixth overall at the end of Stage 9, but he is outside the top ten now as he stopped to change a wheel near the start of SS10 after running off the field. According to him, he missed his braking carried too much speed on the entry to a corner and could not get to the line. Moreover, he started late in the penultimate stage of the morning as he was trying to repair the rear left of his Puma which was damaged after his incident in SS10.

Kalle Rovanpera started under the regulations of Rally2 today as Toyota mechanics managed to fix his car for Saturday stages. He set the fastest time in Stage 9.

Craig Breen was fifth overall until the start of SS10 and was chasing Lappi for the fourth place until the first one crashed on the second stage of Saturday. More specifically, he rolled his Puma 11.6 Km into SS10 and afterwards there was a small fire coming from the brakes. The stage was red flagged and two WRC drivers (Greensmith, Lappi) stopped to help Breen and Paul Nagle who are okay.




Greensmith, Lappi, Evans, Tanak and Neuville have been given notional times for Stage 10.


Watch below the stage times:







Watch below the overall classification after SS12:




Photo Credits: Hyundai

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