Wet weather greeted the competitors on Saturday morning as the longest day of Rally Finland got underway.

Overnight, Ott Tanak was given a five-minute penalty for a scrutineering incident in a tyre checking zone after stage seven, where he had just crashed into a tree. The penalty dropped the Estonian down to 24^th position in the overall standings.

Rovanperä, chasing his first home win, set off to increase his lead which he almost doubled from 4.9 to 8.3 seconds after Saturday’s opening stage. On stage 12, the Finn’s lead was 12.0 seconds but on (unlucky) stage 13, he picked up a slow puncture and lost 2.7 seconds to Thierry Neuville, who still held second overall.

Rovanperä powered his GR Yaris to another stage win to extend his lead to 14.7 seconds at the end of the morning loop after Neuville lost the rear brakes on his Hyundai. The podium fight between the Belgian and Adrien Fourmaux in third was down to 0.3 seconds.

After the midday service, it was raining again and the crews faced tough conditions. Martins Sesks crawled through the first part of stage 15 with zero visibility and finally found a safe place to pull over and clear the misted-up windscreen. He lost over two minutes and dropped from being the leading M-Sport crew to tenth overall.

At the sharp end of the field, Sebastien Ogier took his first stage win with the top five drivers covered by a mere 1.2 seconds. Sami Pajari turned up the wick to take the fastest time in stage 16 having lost his sixth place overall to Elfyn Evans on the previous stage.

Stage 16 tuned the rally on its head. Lightning struck Hyundai twice; firstly, Fourmaux picked up a right-front puncture which did quite a bit of cosmetic damage to his i20 N as he continued, albeit at a reduced pace and moments later, Neuville also picked up a right-front puncture.

Fourmaux dropped a minute 48.8 seconds and plummeted to seventh, while Neuville lost one minute 38.2 seconds and dropped to sixth overall. Both drivers said they had no idea how their punctures had happened…

Suddenly, Toyota held a one-two-three-four-five with Rovanperä streaking away with a twenty-nine second lead over Takamoto Katsuta, Ogier, Evans and Pajari.

The final two stages went off without any incidents, with Rovanperä taking the scratch time in both stages to end the day with a 36.8 second lead while Evans was closing on Ogier with 1.5 seconds separating the pair.

In WRC2, Roope Korhonen continues to lead with Jar-Matti Latvala holding second from Robert Virves.

The final day features just two stages; the iconic Ouninpohja stage, at 23.98km in length will be run twice.

It is far from over…

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Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen ended the first full day of WRC Secto Rally Finland with a 4.9 second lead over Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe. Those are the bare facts but do not tell the spectacular story.

In a rally where stages are won by tenths of a second, or even tied in a dead heat, 4.9 seconds is considered a decent lead, as the double world champion fights for his first ever victory on his home event.

After winning the opening superspecial stage on Thursday evening around the streets of Jyväskylä. Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja slithered down the order on Friday as they opened the road in the Hyundai i20 N.

Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen won the opening stage from Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston by 0.1 seconds with Rovanperä a further 0.3 behind.

The Japanese and Finn drivers shared the early overall leaderboard before Rovanperä went on the rampage, setting spectacular stage times as he won stages three and four and took the rally lead which he stretched out over the course of the day as he added stage seven to his tally, but it was still super close with the top four separated by eight seconds.

The fight for second was breathtaking; 3.2 seconds covered Neuville in second, Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria in third and Katsuta.

The defending world champion won stage nine and finished three stages with a top three time as he came on song in the afternoon loop, which saw rain turn the stages into damp and muddy roads.

Fourmaux won stage eight, which he tied with Rovanperä, and stage ten to cement his provisional podium place which he took off Katsuta after stage nine.

Katsuta had his strongest morning since the Safari Rally with two second fastest times and held second position overall but after the midday service, his driving became more flawed on the wet stages and slid down to fourth, despite winning stage six.

Pajari took stage five but in the first wet stage after lunch, he was overcautious and with the eighth fastest time on the board, he dropped to fifth overall.

Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais, winners in Finland last year, were strangely off the pace in their Toyota GR Yaris and found themselves in sixth overnight with a mountain to climb over the remaining stages. Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin were also off the leading pace, running second on the road all day.

Martins Sesks and Renārs Francis were the leading M-Sport Ford runners as expected in eighth with Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy holding ninth ahead of the 2019 champions Tanak and Jarveoja.

The Estonian, who took the championship lead after Rally Estonia two weeks ago, suffered from running first on the road and his situation worsened when he did a bit of logging in the forest after understeering into a tree in stage seven. The damage appeared to be cosmetic, and he completed stage eight with a flapping bonnet and a second-hand sounding engine, but the Hyundai made it back to service.

Gregoire Munster and Louis Louka were disappointing in their Puma. Munster had a huge slide in a fast right hander and dropped 22 seconds in stage two and had a full spin in stage four after out braking himself and ended up at the bottom of the Rally1 runners.

Roope Korhonen leads WRC2 from Robert Virves with Georg Linnamäe holding third from Toyota team boss Jari-Matti Latvala.

Oliver Solberg went from hero to zero after rolling out of the rally in stage seven; the car understeered at speed into a ditch which pitched car over. And out.

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M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux has escaped unharmed from a huge crash during Rally Monte Carlo, which saw the Frenchman roll his Ford Puma multiple times down an embankment.

Fourmaux appears to have misjudged a left-hand corner on the third stage on Friday morning, which sees him make contact with the embankment on the right. His Puma then flies off the road at speed and down the side of the mountain.

His car came to a rest at the bottom of a ravine, sustaining heavy damage, though the roll-cage appears to have remained intact. However the damage may prove too much to repair.

Both Fourmaux and co-driver Alexandre Coria emerged unharmed from the crash.

At the time of the incident, Fourmaux had been fourth in the overall standings, just 17.9s adrift of then leader Sebastien Ogier, who led Thursday’s shakedown.

“He has had a very heavy accident by the looks of things,” saidM-Sport team principal Richard Millener.

“From what I can see it looks like quite a dirty corner he has gone to cut the line and I guess the cars in front have pulled a bit of mud out, and he just went head on into a mountain, and it has just flipped him over the barrier and 20 to 30 meters down the bank.

“The car looks fairly heavily damaged so I suspect that will be the end of the rally for this one which is a real shame.”

After stage four, Ogier retains his lead, but long-time rival and fellow Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, driving for M-Sport Ford, has cut the gap down to 2.8s following multiple stage wins.

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Adrien Fourmaux completed the first full day of Safari Rally Kenya in sixth place after surviving another brutal day in the WRC on only his third entry in the sports top tier.

But the Frenchman has been reflecting on the pride he feels on being honoured to represent M-Sport Ford on an event last won by world rally legend Colin McRae in 2002.

“It’s really nice to know the last driver to win the Safari in the WRC was Colin McRae in the M-Sport Focus,” he said.

“It will be really difficult to do exactly the same result although you never know because a lot of things can happen. But I want to stay quite humble. It’s an honour for me to do this rally and I can only say thanks to M-Sport for this opportunity.

“To go to Kenya is really good but with the WRC car it’s a dream and I can’t wait to discover not only the rally but the humanity and the landscape.”

However, such was the challenge of day one, a clean run may see him match or better his best WRC finish of fifth which he scored on his WRC debut in Croatia.

Having impressed on his previous two outings in the Fiesta WRC, the Frenchman was looking to take a more cautious approach with no pressure placed on him by the team.

“I have watched the video of the organizer,” he continued. “In some places we will have to almost stop because it’s really rough, but this is when we have to be smart enough to say: ‘Okay, this section we have to be slow. But this section we can be fast.

“It’s really good that the WRC has gone back to Kenya. Okay, it’s a shorter event this time compared to the old WRC event, but it will still be hard and completely different to what we know.

“I’m a bit too young to remember watching the Safari Rally when it used to be in the WRC, but I have seen some videos and it was amazing to see the Ford Focus with the extra bars at the front.

“We will not have this protection but I am sure we will find some giraffes and elephants on the stages so it will be really interesting and for sure we will have to be careful.”

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