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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Thierry Neuville extended his WRC lead to 34 points after he and co-driver Martin Wydaeghe won the EKO Acropolis Rally Greece, heading a podium lockout for Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT.

Sebastian Ogier rolled in the final Wolf Power Stage when he carried too much speed into a left hander. The crew got going again and completed the stage, crucially securing the15 points earned on Friday and Saturday. In all, 20 minutes was lost.

Dani Sordo/Candido Carrera and Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja both moved up one position with Tanak moving back into second in the championship standings.

Hyundai now leads Toyota Gazoo Racing by 35 points in the Manufacturers’ Championship.

Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria blasted their M-Sport Ford Puma to the Power Stage win.

After 305.3km of brutal stages, Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) and crowd-funded Robert Virves/Aleks Lesk (Skoda Fabia WRC2) tied to the tenth of a second for the WRC2 win! The victory went to Pajari – crucial for his championship hopes – as he set the fastest time in SS1.

Read Motorsport Monday for a full report

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Elfyn Evans leads Rallye Monte-Carlo after Friday’s second leg, but the Welshman is under increasing pressure from his Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Sébastien Ogier.

Evans had been 21.6sec clear of his GR Yaris Rally1 colleague after Thursday’s night-time pair of stages, but Ogier is looming increasingly large in the Welshman’s rear-view mirrors after a stunning drive over Friday’s French Alps roads near Gap saw him whittle that deficit down to just 4.5sec.

Ogier won two of the morning’s three stages and climbed from third to second after Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville spun his i20 N in SS4. The Frenchman had moved to within 10.7sec of Evans by the day’s midpoint, with the bulk of the time being gained over the ice-patched special stage from La Bréole to Selonnet.

The pair were closely matched for much of the repeated afternoon loop, but it was again at La Bréole / Selonnet – held in darkness on its second run – where Ogier shone, outpacing his colleague by 4.1sec to set-up a thrilling showdown going into Saturday’s penultimate leg.

“It was a difficult start to the rally, but we expected that with our start position,” said Ogier, a nine-time winner of this event. “Now I am glad that we managed to be very close – tomorrow will be fun.”

Evans, who was never outside the top three times, admitted that conditions had been difficult to read.

“It never gets easier, this rally,” he explained. “[The last stage was] very difficult in the dark. I had a lot of information, but I couldn’t see a lot of it to be honest – I just had to trust it. It’s very difficult to read the conditions on the road. I’m happy to get through today without any issues.”

Neuville remained very much in the fight at the sharp-end and trailed Ogier by 11.6sec in third. He won three of the day’s six special stages and enjoyed a trouble-free run aside from his early-morning spin.

Ott Tänak was lucky to end the day 57.5sec further back in fourth after ice on a right-hander sent his Hyundai sliding into a ditch during SS3. It took spectators just 40sec to get the Estonian back on the road. Grégoire Munster and Takamoto Katsuta also went off at the same location, with the latter dropping more than five minutes.

Adrien Fourmaux repaid M-Sport Ford’s faith in him by delivering an impressive third-best time in SS5. The 28-year-old is returning to the WRC’s top level having contested WRC2 in 2023, and he completed the top five aboard his Puma.

Andreas Mikkelsen, also returning to the top-flight for the first time since 2019, ended the day over one minute back from Fourmaux in sixth overall. Driving a Hyundai, the Norwegian found it difficult to trust the information in his pace notes with surface conditions changing constantly. It’s the first time he has driven a modern-era hybrid car and spent much of the day acclimatising to the latest Rally 1 car.

Seventh-placed Munster reached the overnight halt 28.2sec further back in his Puma, while WRC2 contenders Nikolay Gryazin, Pepe López had an epic fight. Lopez lead by 14.2 seconds after Thursday’s loop.

Friday’s first stage saw Gryazin take the lead by 1.8 seconds, which Lopez cut to 0.8 seconds after stage four, and after stage five, the Spaniard was back in the lead by four tenths of a second.

Gryazin re-took the lead after stage six, Lopez lead after stage seven and Gryazin went to bed on Friday evening with the lead once more, 1.3 seconds ahead.

Saturday’s competitive distance is 120.40km.

Leading positions after Friday:
1. E Evans / S Martin GBR Toyota GR Yaris 1h 25m 28.9s
2. S Ogier / V Landais FRA Toyota GR Yaris +4.5s
3. T Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe BEL Hyundai i20 N +16.1s
4. O Tänak / M Järveoja EST Hyundai i20 N +1m 13.6s
5. A Fourmaux / A Coria FRA Ford Puma +1m 38.0s
6. A Mikkelsen / T Eriksen NOR Hyundai i20 N +2m 58.9s

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Just four stages stand between Kalle Rovanperä and back-to-back FIA World Rally Championship titles after his only title rival Elfyn Evans crashed out of Central European Rally on Saturday.

Having dominated Thursday’s treacherous tests in the Czech Republic to build a commanding rally lead, 23-year-old Rovanperä was already doing more than enough to successfully defend his 2022 WRC drivers’ crown.

A spin on Saturday’s second stage allowed Thierry Neuville to slash the Finn’s advantage by more than half, but the dynamic changed later in the morning when Rovanperä’s Toyota GR Yaris team-mate Evans, who had been sitting third overall, crashed out the rally.

Evans needed to outscore his colleague by at least one point at this penultimate round to keep the fight going, but he came unstuck on a slippery right-hand bend and slid into a barn. The Welshman will restart on Sunday in a desperate bid to salvage bonus points from the Wolf Power Stage.

Sacrificing his chances of the outright rally win to focus on his championship prospects, Rovanperä dialled back his speed. Neuville was left to build a 26.2-second overnight lead in his Hyundai i20 N.

“It’s good to be at the finish of the day,” said Rovanperä, who simply needs a drama-free run through the closing stages to clinch the title. “It’s tough out there. I think these are the most tough Tarmac rally conditions I have ever seen.”

Neuville added: “All afternoon we tried to manage the gap and I am happy to finish the day in the lead of the rally. We are following our target.”

Ott Tänak ensured that all three top-line manufacturers ended the day on the podium, bringing his Ford Puma to the end in a lonely third overall. A non-functioning handbrake caused the M-Sport man some frustrations in SS14, and he trailed Rovanperä by over one minute with Sébastien Ogier 31.1sec behind.

The battle for fifth place was raging between Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta and Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen. Katsuta struggled to feel confident on the greasy asphalt roads in the morning but upped his pace in the afternoon to claim the position by 10.9sec.

Puma hotshot Grégoire Munster was seventh overall ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet. Adrien Fourmaux and Emil Lindholm, leader of the WRC2 category in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2, completed the leaderboard.

Sunday’s finale boasts two stages, each run twice, across two countries. Böhmerwald in Austria is first up before Passauer Land in Germany, the second pass of which forms the bonus points-paying Wolf Power Stage.

Leading positions after Saturday:
1. T Neuville / M Wydaeghe                        Hyundai i20 N                    2h 18m 34.5s
2. K Rovanperä / J Halttunen                       Toyota GR Yaris                 +26.2s
3. O Tänak / M Järveoja                                                 Ford Puma                          +1m 49.1s
4. S Ogier / V Landais                                      Toyota GR Yaris                 +2m 20.2s
5. T Katsuta / A Johnston                              Toyota GR Yaris                 +2m 47.9s
6. T Suninen / M Markkula                           Hyundai i20 N                    +2m 58.8s

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Thierry Neuville claimed victory on the final day of the World Rally Championship in Japan denying Toyota a home victory to go with their titles.

The final day was going to be a showdown between Neuville and Toyota’s Eflyn Evans, however there was to be an added dynamic to proceedings. There was debate within the service park as to whether the threat of rain was real or fall later in the day and not interfere with the rally.

Neuville and Evans went in different directions, the Belgian deciding to take some wet weather rubber whereas Evans and Toyota decided that the rain wouldn’t arrive so took a half and half split of hard and soft tyres.

The stage was set but the result didn’t get to play out over the afternoon as a miscommunication between Evans and his co-driver Scott Martin, saw Evans run wide on a right-hand corner and nudge a kerb with his rear-wheel. This led to a puncture and saw the Welshman fall down the order and out of contention as the change took 1min 30s to complete.

Although now irrelevant in terms of competition, Neuville and his Hyundai squad chose correctly as rain arrived for the final two stages. The rally leader would cruise to the finish though with a 1min 11.3s gap back to his teammate Ott Tanak, the 1-2 really rubbing salt in Toyota’s fairy tale ending.

Upon finishing, Neuville said: “It feels great…It wasn’t an easy weekend or an easy year, but to end with a victory after showing good speed all weekend is a great way to end the season. Our weather guys did an incredible job this weekend so thanks to them and thanks to everybody.”

Tanak was also pleased with a podium in what was his final rally for the Hyundai team: “It’s good to finish on the podium. Extremely quickly in the end. We didn’t have too much speed on the last two events on tarmac but anyway, we won some rallies and we had quite a few podiums. Let’s see what the future brings.”

Completing the podium was Takamoto Katsuta after Evan’s issues. The hometown driver had a minute deficit to Tanak but was jubilant to finish third in his home rally. “Huge thanks to the team and all the supports on the stage and also on the road sections. Unfortunately, my teammates had a lot of problems, but I have no words.”

Sebastien Ogier spent the rally playing catchup and only finished 12s back from the podium. An opening day puncture left the Frenchman wondering what might have been in different circumstances as will have Evans who eventually fell to fifth. Gus Greensmith finished sixth on what has ultimately been a year to forget for the M-sport Ford squad.

Final top six

1. Neuville 2hr 43min 52.3s
2. Tanak +1min 11.1s
3. Katsuta +2min 11.3s
4. Ogier +2min 23.6s
5. Evans +4min 5.1s
6. Greensmith +4min 7.4s

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Thierry Neuville ended the Friday leg of Ypres Rally Belgium in the lead by 2.5s followed by his Hyundai teammate, Ott Tanak. Elfyn Evans would round out the top 3 after being given a 10s time penalty for arriving at the final stage start a minute late.

The opening day threw up drama from the off, as Kalle Rovanpera rolled his Toyota on SS2 after winning the SS1. The Finn, who had a chance to claim the title this weekend, understeered into a ditch which sent the car into a barrel roll. Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen weren’t harmed, but any chance of sealing the title here had now gone.

With Rovanpera out, his teammate Evans took up the baton as the leading Toyota at the head of the field, The Welshman battled Ott Tanak through the morning as they traded times as neither felt completely comfortable on the winding narrow roads, but Evans would lead going into the afternoon loop.

Neuville was another driver that would lack some confidence in the opening exchanges, but he only shipped 6.5s to the leading pair to run third. Yaris driver, Esapekka Lappi finished the morning fourth overall and had the benefit of finishing the last morning stage in the dry.

The rain that appeared meant that Ford man, Adrien Fourmaux would be jumped due to losing over a minute due to conditions.

In the afternoon, however, it would be Neuville that would make the biggest impression. Some set-up tweaks gave the Belgian the confidence and would be fastest through the subsequent four tests to jump his teammate and Evans.

Tanak would be Mr. Consistent for the rest of the run, never dropping out the top three times, the Estonian would be there to pounce on Evan’s misfortunes.

Despite taking over the lead, Evans’s day would slowly unravel due to putting a single wet weather tyre onto his car due to damaging one of the slicks. This would provide a performance disadvantage, but the bad luck would be hammered home when he received a time penalty for appearing at the final stage one minute late.

Whilst the top three had their cars geared towards a dry set-up, the rest of the field went the other way expecting a lot of rain. Lappi would end the day 23.6s back from the top three and 18.8s ahead of fifth-placed Craig Breen.

Evans and Rovanpera wouldn’t be the only Toyota to hit trouble, Takamoto Katsuta finished the day in 18^th due to a transmission problem costing him chunks of time throughout the day.

Day 1 Top 6

1. Neuville 49min 50.4s
2. Tanak +2.5s
3. Evans +13.7s
4. Lappi +37s
5. Breen +56.1s
6. Greensmith +1min 34.5s

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