Rally Estonia - 4th Day: Hat-trick for Rovanpera, Lappi beats Evans for 3rd place



At the end of the final day of Rally Estonia, Kalle Rovanpera takes a dominant victory with Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi following him.

Kalle Rovanpera wins Rally Estonia for a third consecutive year and was the fastest driver in all stages today which means that he was the quickest driver for thirteen stages in a row and took the five extra points from Powerstage.

Thierry Neuville remains second overall and was not able to catch the reigning WRC Champion while EP decreased his gap from the Belgian to 9,1 seconds after the end of SS20. Moreover, Neuville lost the rear in a slow corner at the beginning of SS18, but he lost the hybrid power in PS which means that he lost many seconds there and eventually he finished ahead of EP for 6,8 seconds.

Esapekka Lappi completes the 2-3 for Hyundai Motorsport and managed to keep his third place as Elfyn Evans lost many seconds in SS18 and SS20.

Evans finished behind EP for 7,3 seconds, just the gap they had at the end of Saturday. In addition to that, he was the second fastest driver in PS and score four points there, therefore he remains second on the drivers' standings and will start after Rovanpera in Finland.

Teemu Suninen kept his fifth place overall as he could not follow the pace of the leading trio, but he built a comfortable gap from the following two drivers on the classification.

Takamoto Katsuta overtook Pierre-Louis Loubet at the end of Stage 20 and headed to the Powerstage with a gap of 0,6 seconds, but the M-Sport Ford driver was quicker than the first one in PS and retook the sixth place. Their gap is at 0,3 seconds at the end of Rally Estonia.

Ott Tanak remains eighth overall and scored two points in PS, but the things would have been different if his teammate would have finished seventh as there was the possibility for M-Sport Ford to give team orders with the view of helping the Estonian at his fight for this year's title.

Andreas Mikkelsen was the winner in WRC2 class taking advantage over Oliver Solberg's retirement on Saturday.


Watch below the stage times:









Watch below the overall classification after the end of Rally Estonia:




Photo Credits: Toyota

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post