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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Oliver Solberg continued his domination of WRC Delfi Rally Estonia on Saturday, increasing his overnight lead to 21.1 seconds after winning three stages on the fly on Saturday morning.

His Friday performance was helped by a favourable road position, but it was a level playing field on Saturday with three drivers boasting four championships between them, trying to hunt him down to no avail.

Another fastest time on stage 15 kept his confidence high while conceding a few tenths here and there after he claimed he would wind his speed down a bit.

“It’s been an absolutely amazing day,” said Solberg, whose father Petter was the 2003 world champion. “Really consistent speed, no mistakes, just trying to keep it clean. It wasn’t the plan to extend the gap, but hey, it’s fantastic.

“I’m just doing my thing and trying to do every stage as good as I can and as clean as I can with no mistakes, and today there have been no mistakes. They are pushing so hard behind, and I can feel it – it’s tense.”

Behind the flying Toyota, it was all out war between Hyundai’s Ott Tanak and Thierry Neuville as they fought over second position overall. They traded places six times during the day, with the margin between them as close as 0.1 seconds after stage 13.

A ‘suggestion’ from Hyundai’s bosses that it was critically important to bring both cars home in second and third to maximize their Manufacturers’ points saw Neuville lose a little confidence, leaving Tanak four seconds ahead of his teammate at the end of play.

Kalle Rovanperä holds fourth in no-man’s land, too far behind the Hyundais and sufficiently ahead of fifth placed Adrien Fourmaux to gain or lose any positions in the standings. Rovanperä wrung his Toyota’s neck, and tried numerous changes during the day to improve matters but admitted he and Toyota Gazoo Racing were out of options to find more speed.

Fourmaux had a steady run in the third i20 N, successfully absorbing Takamoto Katsuta’s pressure to leave the Japanese Toyota driver trailing by 8.6 seconds in fifth and sixth respectively.

Elfyn Evans was expected to challenge Katsuta and Fourmaux, given his more favourable position of fifth on the road, but he languished in seventh place and like his teammate, simply lacked pace across the longest day of the rally. Not only did he fail to make any progress climbing up the leader board, but he also dropped a couple of seconds further back.

Sami Pajari ended eighth overall, 34 seconds ahead of M-Sport Ford’s leading Puma in the hands of Martins Sesks. Josh McErlean rounded out the top ten with Grégoire Munster languishing in last in the Rally1 class after spending Saturday running first on the road.

Robert Virves continues to lead in WRC2 with a comfortable margin of 26.5 seconds over his fellow Estonian Georg Linnamäe.

Three stages and 60km remain for Sunday, with the possibility of rain at roughly the time the Wolf Power Stage is scheduled to start…

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Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja clinched their and Hyundai’s first victory in eight months after winning the EKO Acropolis Rally Greece by 32.8 seconds over Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais in  a tense final day.

On the Wolf Power Stage Tanak dropped 16 seconds to Ogier which turned out to be gearbox related which cost the rally winner the maximum Super Sunday points which were scooped up by Ogier.

The top two each won a pair of stages on Sunday while Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria stood on the podium for the first time since Monte Carlo back in January.

Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin brought their Toyota home in fourth place to maintain their championship lead, albeit reduced to just nine points ahead of Ogier with Tanak three points further back in third on the title log.

Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe came home in fifth after a scare on the penultimate stage when his i20 N lost power. He was forced to stop and reset the computer but it didn’t help and the Belgians lost 1:28s.

Oliver Solberg was a remarkable sixth overall – his third straight victory in WRC2, some 53.8 seconds ahead of his old teammate Gus Greensmith.

Yohan Rossel, Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Alejandro Cachon rounded out the top ten.

Read the full report in Motorsport Monday tomorrow.

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Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja dominated EKO Acropolis Rally Greece on Saturday, delivered a near faultless performance, taking five stage wins from six – beaten only by Sebastian Ogier on SS10 and then by just 0.1 seconds as the Toyota Gazoo Racing star held on to second overall.

Tanak takes a 43.6 second lead into Sunday’s four stage finale, on the cusp of giving Hyundai their long awaited first victory of the season.

 “We’ve generally had a very good day. Even in the afternoon, it’s true that some bedrock was threatening us sometimes, but generally it was smoother and more consistent – a bit better than expected. We had a good rhythm, and we maintained all day. While we are still in the lead, it’s important to remember that we haven’t scored any points yet and we still have some rough stages to go, including one that is new and very long, so this is always very demanding. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow to bring this home.”

Ogier initially trailed Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux until he clobbered a a piece of Greek countryside which damaged their suspension, but a makeshift fix got them back on the road and to midday service – dropping them to third overall.

While a tyre came off its rim on SS11, Fourmaux was undeterred, and still managed to claim a top-five stage time to retain his overall position. After a tyre came off the rim in stage 11, the rest of day was smooth sailing, and the crew go into Sunday with a comfortable cushion of just under a minute from Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin.

Evans remained a distant fourth after a steady but unspectacular day. The Toyota man repeatedly described the conditions as “very rough” and ended the leg over three minutes off the lead – but with championship rival Thierry Neuville behind, Sunday’s bonus-point opportunities remain critical.

Kalle Rovanperä was running mid-pack before losing his brakes and going off in SS11, while Takamoto Katsuta also went off and became beached in the same test leading to retirement for both Toyota drivers.

It was another bruising leg for Neuville. After losing time to a puncture in the morning, the Hyundai man fought back into fifth overall – though still over a minute behind Evans.

“We had the pace,” Neuville reflected. “But three punctures [this weekend] didn’t allow us to do what we can.”

Grégoire Munster completed the leg sixth despite nursing a faulty handbrake throughout the day. Oliver Solberg continued to lead WRC2 in seventh overall with a comfortable buffer over Gus Greensmith, Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Yohan Rossel.

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Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja ended a rough, puncture-riddled opening day of EKO Acropolis Rally Greece with a three second lead over Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria, giving Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT hope for a repeat win on one of their most successful events.

Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais ended third in their Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris, some 16.9 seconds off the lead, having led the event heading into the mid-day service break.

Thierry Neuville controlled a Hyundai one-two-three after stage three before the Belgian’s miserable luck continued when he suffered a left-front puncture in stage four, the final test of the morning loop, leaving the i20 N trailing home 40 seconds adrift and on three tyres and a rim.

“It was the right decision to carry on,” Neuville explained. “Obviously disappointing, but the rally is long. There are going to be a lot of punctures.”

Behind the leading trio, Sami Pajari continued his impressive form, briefly holding third overall and ending the loop in fourth. He was 4.9sec ahead of Kalle Rovanperä, who has struggled with confidence and reported excessive oversteer in his GR Yaris.

Neuville is sixth, followed by Elfyn Evans, who is enduring a tough start to his Acropolis campaign. First on the road, the Welshman described his car as “really difficult to turn” and dropped 42.5sec off the lead by midday.

Grégoire Munster was eighth, with WRC2 frontrunners Oliver Solberg and Kajetan Kajetanowicz rounding out the overall top 10. Mārtiņš Sesks, Takamoto Katsuta and Josh McErlean all dropped time earlier in the loop after stopping to change wheels.

Ogier’s pace ebbed away in the afternoon, dropping to third behind the top two Hyundais. Fourmaux was on fine form, taking two stage wins on the bounce. Evans was fourth, a solid run after sweeping the road in the morning stages.

Munster held an impressive fifth overall from Katsuta, Rovanperä and Neuville.

Pajari’s great run ended with a mechanical retirement en route to stage six.

Oliver Solberg held a solid 53 second lead in WRC2 over Kajetan Kajetanowicz.

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One year on from losing victory on the final stage of Rally Italia Sardegna to Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja, this year, the tables were turned when Ogier claimed his record fifth victory on the Italian island by 7.9 seconds.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver went into the final Wolf Power Stage with a comfortable 17.2 second lead over Tanak; however, in the final stage, Ogier ran wide after his car got stuck in a rut at a sharp hairpin and ran off the road, forcing the Frenchman to reverse out, setting only the seventh fastest time.

“In the ruts, I just couldn’t turn the car,” Ogier explained. “There was no speed at all, so I didn’t try to force it and hit it – I preferred to stop and reverse. But yeah, not ideal. Still, it was enough to win.”

The result marked back-to-back wins for the Frenchman following his Rally de Portugal triumph last month, and his third victory of the season from just four starts – propelling him firmly into the title fight.

Behind the dueling Toyota and Hyundai crews, Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen stormed through the final 13.7km test 8.1 seconds faster than Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe in their Hyundai i20 N.

Fourth in the overall standings went to Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, just over five minutes behind Ogier after losing loads of time sweeping the road clean on Friday. The championship leader saw his lead slashed to seventeen points while Ogier moved into second place on the championship leaderboard, one point ahead of Rovanperä.

Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari ended in fifth and seventh respectively, with Oliver Solberg sandwiched between the two GR Yarises. Pajari sustained a damaged rear driveshaft after a spin, dropping from fifth position.

Roberto Dapra (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2) and Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) rounded out the top ten.

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Sébastien Ogier stretched his Rally Italia Sardegna lead on Saturday morning as Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux and Ott Tänak both ran into problems in the punishing island stages.

Ogier’s 2.1 second overnight lead stretched to 7.4 seconds after winning Saturday’s opening stage, beating this Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Kalle Rovanperä by 3.1 seconds, while Hyundai’s Ott Tänak and Adrien Fourmaux finished third and fourth respectively.

Tänak fought back on stage eight, cutting the Frenchman’s lead to 4.5 seconds but on the second stage of the day Fourmaux picked up a puncture dropping off the podium. Tänak and Rovanperä moved up into the provisional overall podium standings with Sami Pajari holding an excellent fourth overall, ahead of Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta.

Ogier was a on a mission on the final stage of the morning loop, heading his Estonian rival by 10 seconds as Tänak had to deal with a deflating tyre, to take a 15 second advantage into the afternoon loop.

Fourmaux’s day went from bad to worse after he ran wide in stage nine, losing another chunk of time.

Tänak reminded everyone he was still in the chase for the win taking the fastest time in stage ten, but only shaved 0.6 seconds off Ogier’s fairly comfortable lead.

Tänak took a big bite out of Ogier’s lead on stage 11, pulling the gap back to 10.7 seconds with one stage remaining.

Evans helped himself to fourth overall after stage 11 at Pajari’s expense, while on the final stage, Ogier took the scratch time again, 0.4 seconds up on the chasing Hyundai.

Rovanperä, Evans and Pajari held station ahead of the WRC2 leader Nikolay Gryazin, who was followed by the recovering Katsuta who dropped down the order after his Friday roll.

Oliver Solberg, Emil Lindholm and Lauri Joona rounded out the top ten with four stages remaining on Sunday.

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Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen completed their domination of the fourth round of the World Rally Championship, winning 15 of the 18 stages en route to building a 53.5 second cushion over the eight-time WRC champion Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais.

Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin were ranked third in all the metrics; overall, Super Sunday and Wolf Power Stage extending their advantage at the top of the championship leaderboard to 43 points.

Rovanperä won the Super Sunday standings and topped the Wolf Power Stage timesheets giving the Finnish Toyota Gazoo Racing crew the maximum haul of 35 points which elevates them to second overall in the title race, up from sixth in one fell swoop.

Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston made it a Toyota 1-2-3-4 exorcising the Japanese driver’s ghost from Safari Rally Kenya where he crashed out on the final stage.

Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria were the leading Hyundai team in fifth place, followed by Ott Tanak and Martin Järveoja in sixth and the luckless Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe coming home in seventh after a puncture in the penultimate stage cost them a minute.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy crashed their M-Sport Ford Puma out of the rally in the morning’s opening stage.

Yohan Rossel and Arnaud Dunand took their second victory of the year in WRC2 and lead the championship after fending off the very close attention of Alejandro Cachón and Borja Rozada in a thrilling battle.

Nikolay Gryazin and Konstantin Aleksandrov brought their Skoda home in third place.

Read Motorsport Monday for the full report. On Monday, obviously!

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Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin claimed their maiden Safari Rally Kenya victory giving Toyota Gazoo Racing  their fifth straight win in the modern Safari era. Hyundai secured their best Kenyan result with a two-three podium for Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja and Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe.

Evans, with his second consecutive victory has extended his lead in the Driver’s Championship to 36 points while Toyota Gazoo Racing still leads the Manufacturers standings.

Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria won the Wolf Power stage and topped the Super Sunday standings, taking the maximum 10 point bonus.

Sami Pajari completed his maiden Safari adventure in fourth overall with Takamoto Katsuta provisionally in fifth assuming he makes it to the final control in what was a very sick sounding car after rolling his GR Yaris one kilometer into the final stage, losing fourth place overall while chasing the Super Sunday win, where he was a mere 0.3 seconds behind Fourmaux going into the Wolf Power Stage.

Gregoire Munster and Louis Louka brought their Puma home in sixth while the final Rally 1 runner, Greek gentleman driver Jourdan Serderidis and Frederic Miclotte took home a couple of points for ninth overall.

Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen retired after Sunday’s first stage with electrical problems

Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson made it back-to-back WRC2 African victories in their Skoda Fabia RS, their task made easier after  their major challenger Jan Solans and Rodrigo Sanjuan rolled their Toyota GR Yaris on Sunday’s opening stage.

Read Motorsport Monday for a full rally report on Monday (obviously!)

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Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin survived the six-stage mud bath that was Safari Rally Kenya on Saturday. Overnight rain turned the stages into a quagmire while ongoing rain – torrential at times – shuffled the leaderboard almost by the stage.

Heading out on Saturday morning, Evans had a slender 7.7 second lead over his double world champion teammates Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen but after the day was done, Evans had 1’57.4” in hand over Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja and 4’33.4” over third placed Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe, provisionally giving Hyundai their best Safari result since it returned to the WRC calendar in 2021.

The first casualty of the day was Adrien Fourmaux who did not start Saturday, the team elected to save the car for Super Sunday.

Evans took his first stage win of the rally and driving with a fine balance of speed and caution more than doubled his lead on stage 12 after Rovanpera had a left-front puncture.

In stage 11, Neuville lost 1’25” changing a flat tyre and Josh McErlean hit a rock which caused a puncture which they stopped to change. A few km further down the road, the Puma pulled up with a broken steering rack, which cost the Irish duo 20 minutes to repair.

Takamoto Katsuta, still feeling weak and co-driver Aaron Johnston ended the stage with a tyre hanging off the rim, deflating their podium aspirations.

As stage 12 got underway, Munster stopped again for yet another puncture, leaving the M-Sport crew with no more spares. Neuville dropped 42.8 seconds but refused to speak at the end of the stage. He too was ill with a tummy bug so did well in the circumstances. Evans took his second consecutive stage win, extending his lead to 37 seconds.

Stage 13 was largely dry but extremely muddy towards the end; Rovanpera had a puncture and dropped 1’20” to Katsuta who lit up the timing screens, 14.5 seconds quicker through the 28.9km stage – the longest of the day – than Tanak.

It got worse for Rovanpera in stage 13 when he suffered another left-front puncture after going off the road to avoid a large herd of zebra in the road – only in Africa! Evans’ lead mushroomed to 1’32.5” while Tanak closed to within 17 seconds to the #69 Yaris.

Torrential rain began to fall as the stage got underway, with Munster, running second on the road, going completely sideways to his direction of travel but he saved his Puma and continued.

Both Hyundais had issues with the windscreen misting up with Wydaeghe using a selfie-stick and a cloth to wipe the windscreen for Neuville!

Evans had a spin in a straight line as the conditions worsened but Rovanperä’s rally went south in stage 14 when a wishbone broke and although he came home with the second fastest stage time, there was still a long way to go. After the stage finish, he strapped the broken piece with ratchet straps. Would it hold for another 46.6km of stages to run?

Stage 15: it started to rain at the start of the stage but the early runners, Jourdan Serderidis, Gregoire Munster and Josh McErlean had the best of the conditions. The later runners all faced significant rain and slippery roads, while Katsuta and Neuville each had a right-front puncture.

It started raining heavily towards the end of the stage, which Munster won followed by McErlean, giving M-Sport Ford a one-two stage result.

Rovanpera limped through the stage, his wheel moving about and unable to put any forces through the left-rear and lost 2’56”, handing Tanak second position.

Evans was in the pound seats with a 2’50” lead with one stage remaining.  The stage start and end were awash and there was no grip, with everyone running wide at some point, especially over the final four km of the stage. Katsuta had another puncture, McErlean was missing his front bumper and Neuville had a misfire, but it was Tänak who took the fastest time, followed by Neuville.

Evans tip-toed through the stage – the rally was his to lose and ended the day with 1’57.4” in hand over Tanak, who had a cushion of 2’36″ over Neuville. Katsuta, Rovanpera – who lost another 3’18.5” in the final stage, and Pajari, who had a steady drive on his maiden visit to Kenya completed the top six

The rally leader played down his chances, saying: “It’s been remarkably difficult out there today. This has definitely been a proper Safari. Even this morning the conditions were really quite tricky after a lot of rain overnight. Then the rain came again immediately as we started the afternoon loop. The conditions were horribly inconsistent, and I was trying to treat everything with care but it’s easy to drop a lot of time. I couldn’t see much at all at the end with so much mud, but I’m happy we managed to get through it. Even with this gap, nothing is guaranteed on this rally. Tomorrow will be demanding and rough and anything can still happen, so we need to stay focused.”

Second placed Tanak said: “There has been a lot of action today, especially this afternoon – it was proper wet and tricky conditions. Unfortunately, we had some trouble with the windscreen again and water in the car, which made it a very demanding loop. The conditions change from stage to stage so you never really know what you are going to find. There is always a new challenge you need to fight and overcome. Tomorrow should be smoother but the roads are still very rough in places.”

Gus Greensmith emerged from the carnage to lead the WRC2 category after fending off Jan Solans, who took the lead on Saturday’s third stage, opening a gap of 19 seconds over his Skoda rival before the brit struck back in the tricky final stage.

Oliver Solberg won three of the day’s six stages but remains over half an hour off the lead.

Sunday’s final day features five stages in total, beginning with a return to Thursday evening’s Mzabibu stage. Oserengoni and Hell’s Gate will then be run twice either side of final service, with the second pass of Hell’s Gate once more serving as the rally-ending Wolf Power Stage.

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