Rally Latvia - 3rd Day - 1st Loop: Rovanpera pulls clear on Toyota's 1-2, Tanak retakes 4th place



At the end of Saturday morning, Kalle Rovanpera remains at the top of the overall classification in Latvia with Sebastien Ogier and Martins Sesks following him.

Kalle Rovanpera extended further his advantage over his rivals on Saturday morning by setting the fastest time in SS9, SS10 and SS12 while he reached the 200 stage wins in World Rally Championship.

Sebastien Ogier does the 1-2 for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and managed to overtake Martins Sesks at the end of Stage 11 despite the fact that the eight-time WRC Champion had a two-wheeled moment there. In fact, the two left wheels of his Yaris went off the road into the grass, but Ogier was able to recover and to manouver his car over the flying finish.

Sesks dropped to third place after the end of Stage 11 for 0,2 seconds over Ogier and was aware of the fact that it was difficult for him to fight against the two WRC Champions. However, he will chase to reclaim his second place as his gap from Ogier is at 0,6 seconds before the start of Saturday afternoon.

Ott Tanak took back his fourth place at the end of Stage 11 as he was the fastest driver there. In fact, he initially moved up to fifth at the end of Stage 9 despite the fact that he went off when he took a lot bigger cutter than he expected in the beginning of SS9. Afterwards, he managed to cut his gap from the fourth Katsuta at 0,5 seconds at the end of Stage 10 and eventually returned back to his fourth place after the end of SS11.

Adrien Fourmaux completes the top five after Takamoto Katsuta's drama in Stage 12 while he was not able to defend his fifth place from Tanak and dropped to sixth at the end of Stage 9.

Elfyn Evans is sixth overall and was behind Fourmaux for 5,9 seconds at the end of SS11, but the last one increased his gap by 2,1 seconds after SS12.

Takamoto Katsuta lost two places in Stage 12 and slipped behind Fourmaux and Evans on the classification. The Japanese driver went off on a chicane and stalled pulling out of a ditch 1.5 Km into SS12 resulting in damaging the power steering of his Yaris. 

Thierry Neuville earned one position on Saturday morning and is in eighth place overall in front of his teammate Esapekka Lappi who passed Gregoire Munster on the classification.

Munster dropped to ninth behind TN at the end of SS9 for two seconds and afterwards he lost one more place over Lappi at the end of Stage 11.


Watch below the stage times:







Watch below the overall classification after the end of SS12:




Photo Credits: Toyota

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post