At the end of Saturday afternoon, Sami Pajari is the new leader of Rally Finland with Oliver Solberg and Elfyn Evans following him.
Sami Pajari became the new rally leader in Finland after Sebastien Ogier's and Julien Ingrassia's crash in Stage 17 while the Finn driver sent a cheerful message to Ogier after SS16. In fact, Pajari was the fastest driver in SS15 and SS17 and was trying to cut Ogier's lead on the first two afternoon stages as the last one was ahead of Pajari for 20,9 seconds after the end of SS16.
Oliver Solberg moved up to the second position overall, but is behind his teammate Pajari for 46,4 seconds with two stages remaining.
Elfyn Evans does the 1-2-3 for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and managed to move up to the podium positions after the end of Stage 18 as he and Adrien Fourmaux shared the third place after being equal at the end of SS17. Moreover, the Welshman set the fastest time in Stage 18.
Fourmaux slipped behind Evans at the fourth position for 3,8 seconds after Stage 18 and was able to keep Evans at bay from Stages 15 to 16 despite the fact that he hit a rock inside the corner of SS15 resulting in running wide and losing the rear of his i20N.
Takamoto Katsuta completes the top five and will try to score the maximum points on Sunday as the Japanese star hopes for a miracle in order to fight for the final step of the podium considering the fact that he is more than one minute behind Evans and Fourmaux.
Thierry Neuville stole the sixth place from Josh McErlean for 1,5 seconds after the final stage of Saturday. Both of them fought hard this afternoon as its closest gap was at 5,5 seconds in favor of McErlean after SS17. Also, Neuville dropped some seconds in Stage 17 as he suffered from a front left puncture in SS17.
McErlean managed to keep Neuville at the seventh place on the first three afternoon stages of Saturday, but the Belgian started cutting McErlean's gap since the end of Stage 16. Last but not least, McErlean lost only one second in Stage 17 compared to Neuville as the first one hit haybales there.
Jon Armstrong is still outside the top ten as he received a big time penalty for restarting under the SuperRally regulations today.
Sebastien Ogier was in the first position of Rally Finland since the very beginning of the event and managed to increase further his gap from the second Pajari by setting the fastest time in Stage 16. However, he and Julien Ingrassia had a brutal crash in SS17 as the nine-time WRC Champion lost the rear on a corner and went straight on the opposite direction. Afterwards, the car rolled multiple times and eventually ended up into a ditch.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch below the overall classification after SS18:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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