At the end of Friday morning, Sami Pajari is leading Croatia Rally after Stage 4 with Takamoto Katsuta and Thierry Neuville following him.
Sami Pajari grabbed the rally lead in Croatia at the end of Stage 3 and was the fastest driver in Stage 4 increasing his gap from the second Takamoto Katsuta to 8,4 seconds. The Finn driver was lucky in Stage 2 as he suffered from a slow front right puncture.
Takamoto Katsuta does the 1-2 for Toyota and managed to steal the second place from Thierry Neuville at the end of Stage 4 with their gap being at three tenths of a second.
Thierry Neuville is the top driver for Hyundai Motorsport as he sits in third position overall and set the fastest time in Stage 3. In fact, he gained three places at the end of Stage 2 while he was just 2,7 seconds behind the leader Pajari at the end of SS3.
Hayden Paddon moved up to fourth position overall and mentioned understeer in Stage 1.
Josh McErlean completes the top five and stayed out of trouble throughout this dramatic morning.
Adrien Fourmaux dropped from fourth to outside the top ten at the end of Stage 2 due to a front right puncture, but he ended the first loop of Friday at sixth overall by taking some time back on the final two stages of Friday morning.
Oliver Solberg understeered, hit a cliff and his car was thrown out into the forest just 5 Kilometers into Stage 1.
Elfyn Evans was leading Croatia Rally as he was the fastest driver in SS1 and SS2, but he went off the road 13,2 Km into Stage 3 which means that he will not go any further today.
Jon Armstrong was third overall at the end of Stage 1 and dropped to the seventh position overall at the end of Stage 2 due to a front left puncture. However, he responded in Stage 3 as he was slower than Neuville for 0,1 seconds and was very close in taking his first ever stage win in WRC. However, he was forned to retire in Stage 4 as his car understeered out into curbs in a left hander breaking the front right suspension and puncturing the two right tyres. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that he was the fastest driver on the first three splits in Stage 2.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch below the overall classification after Stage 4:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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