Evans suffered yet another technical gremlin on the last stage of the day, though he wouldn’t be drawn into discussing what exactly was amiss after losing 45s on the day’s final stage: “Just managing something small, that’s all,” he said. He’s just shy of 10 minutes off the lead.
Sordo was sympathetic towards his rivals’ troubles but is now focused on ensuring Hyundai keep their podium lockout intact.
“It’s not nice for sure when the others have problems but it’s part of the job,” he said. “It’s a really difficult rally, we have some drivers with problems, some make mistakes, but we stay there. I’m sure we have a really strong car.”
Grégoire Munster had finally moved into fifth place on stage five, only to lose it straight away when he stopped to change a front-right puncture – only to then suffer a delamination on the rear-left in the final split of Tarzan’s section pass. He fell to seventh place as a consequence.
“We didn’t have the handbrake once again,” explained Munster. “The problem is sometimes you hit with the sidewall because you cannot make the car turn, so front-right puncture.”
WRC2 had been dominated early on by Yohan Rossel. But when the Citroën driver had to stop and change a puncture on the second pass of Tarzan, the floodgates opened for challengers to stake their claim for the class lead.
Gus Greensmith, who’d gone fastest on shakedown, should have been in prime position to capitalize. Instead, he hit a cow – the animal walked away but the Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 went no further.
Sami Pajari had held second place until the final stage but he was usurped by Robert Virves by 11.1s on Tarzan 2, promoting the 2022 Junior WRC champion to a 1.5s lead overnight.
