At the end of the final day, Ott Tanak is the winner of this year's Rally Sweden with Craig Breen and Thierry Neuville finishing behind him.
Ott Tanak claims his first victory of the season with M-Sport Ford despite the fact that he was the fastest driver only in one stage, but he managed his advantage over his rivals today.
Craig Breen finished in second place overall and dropped to third after a 10-second time penalty he received as he checked one-minute late at the stop control of SS18. He was faster than Tanak on the penultimate stage of the rally and their gap was at 8,5 seconds after SS17. Last but not least, the Irishman did know that his teammate had a moment with a snowbank in SS18 and gained back his place at the end of PS as their gap was at five tenths of a second after the end of his time penalty.
Thierry Neuville completes the 2-3 for Hyundai and set the benchmark in Stage 17 while he fought with Kalle Rovanpera for the last position of the podium. Finally, he spun after a corner in PS and hit a snowbank with the rear of his i20N which costed him some seconds.
Kalle Rovanpera finished in fourth place overall and said that he had a small issue with his Yaris on the road section before the start of SS16. Despite this problem, he managed to be the fastest driver in SS16 and to reduce his gap from Neuville at 1,1 seconds after that stage.
Elfyn Evans completes the top five and could not do anything more to catch up his teammate. However, he scored the four extra points in PS as he was the second fastest driver there despite the fact that he set an identical time with Rovanpera.
Pierre-Louis Loubet remains sixth overall and had a moment in Stage 17 as his Puma went off the ruts in a juction and he went a bit wide. Finally, he dropped more than two minutes in Powerstage as he had to pull over near the finish of the stage with a technical issue and had to drive in EV mode for the rest of SS18.
Esapekka Lappi finished seventh overall and overtook Oliver Solberg on the overall classification after the end of the final stage of the rally with their gap being at 5,7 seconds. He pushed to the limit in Powerstage and took the five extra points from it as he had no spare wheel with him. It must be mentioned that PS victory was his first stage win with Hyundai Motorsport.
Takamoto Katsuta was forced to retire before the start of Powerstage as Toyota confirmed that his Yaris carried a technical issue based on the data analysis of the car after SS17.
Lorenzo Bertelli finished outside the top ten in his first outing with the Toyota Rally1 car and had a brief stop 15.1 Km into SS16 as he had a spin at a junction. In addition to that, he went wide on the exit of the corner in SS17 and almost stuck in a snowbank at 5 Km.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch below the overall classification after the end of Rally Sweden:
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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