World Rally Championship title favourite Thierry Neuville overhauled Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier to move into the lead at the Central European Rally on Friday morning.
The Hyundai driver, who has the chance to seal a maiden world title this weekend, completed the morning’s three slippery Czech asphalt stages with a 2.7s advantage over overnight leader Ogier.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak held third [+3.8s] ahead of Toyota’s Elfyn Evans [+6.3s], with Takamoto Katsuta [+19.1s], Sami Pajari [41.6s], Adrien Fourmaux [+47.1s] and Gregoire Munster completing the top eight. Stage five was brought to premature halt when Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen crashed out of sixth position.
The morning began with a second run through the slippery Klatovy stage that was held in darkness on Thursday night.
Once again it was Ogier who set the pace on the 11.78km test this time with the advantage of daylight. The Toyota driver admitted it wasn’t a “perfect run” due to the challenging bumpy road.
The overnight leader’s time was however 2.3s faster than his nearest rival Neuville, who tackled the stage first.
With crews taking in a remote service last night, Neuville could only make a partial repair to his front right wheel arch damaged in Thursday’s opening stage, using tape.
“I struggled a bit with understeer but overall probably the easiest stage of the day,” said Neuville, who dropped 3.2s behind the leader.
Katsuta emerged as the closest challenge to Ogier’s time on the stage thanks to an impressive effort that was 1.5s shy on a road that was becoming increasingly dirty with every pass. The effort moved the Japanese driver to third overall on his return to the WRC after sitting out Rally Chile.
Evans also climbed the leaderboard from seventh to fifth behind Tanak after posting a time 2.2s slower than Ogier.
Rookie team-mate Pajari appeared to be on course for a blistering time having matched Ogier’s early splits before a sudden hybrid failure left him 3.7s adrift.
Mikkelsen dropped from sitting third overnight to seventh despite his clean run while the M-Sport Fords of Fourmaux and Munster struggled for speed, propping up the bottom of the timesheets on the stage.
Conditions were trickier in stage four (Strasin, 26.69km) which featured damp sections, light drizzle and fog patches.
Evans managed to tame the inconsistent grip the best to set the pace, although the Toyota driver wasn’t happy with his time. However, the time was good enough to move up to third overall to close to within 0.8s of rally leader Neuville.
Neuville trailed Evans by 1.6s on the test but was struggling for confidence behind the heel.
“I had no feeling for the grip, I was understeering massively throughout the stage," said Neuville. "Many grip changes throughout the stage and I struggled to find confidence after."
Tanak was third fastest on the test despite struggling with the handling of his i20 N.
Meanwhile, rally leader Ogier witnessed his advantage decrease to 0.3s over Neuville after losing fractions of seconds by running wide at a tight left-hander.
Hybrid failures proved to be the story of the stage as Mikkelsen, Fourmaux and Munster joined Pajari, who lost the use of his unit on the previous stage. It appeared a hard landing from a jump triggered the trio of failures in the stage.
While the lack of hybrid hampered Fourmaux and Munster, the pair were also struggling with the set-up of their Ford Pumas.
“On a jump we were losing the hybrid," said Fourmaux. "I have no feeling at all with the car, it is a nightmare. It is so difficult to drive. The stage is tricky but the car doesn’t like me.”
Tanak took the spoils in stage five (Sumavskee Hostice 1, 16.85km) by 0.3s from Neuville but the latter's drive in tricky inconsistent surface conditions helped Neuville move ahead of Ogier into the rally lead.
Neuville, who survived a minor brush with a bank, made the most of starting first on the road as the stage became increasingly muddier from the many cuts.
“With no car in front, it is hard to judge the grip," said Neuville. "There were a few more cuts so I put a bit more dirt on the road, so hopefully it works but overall very tricky."
Ogier dropped 3.3s with some of the loss attributed to a mistake at a junction that was replicated by Katsuta.
Evans dropped to fourth as he struggled for grip particularly on a section with fallen leaves, losing 6.1s.
It appeared the slippery leaves played a part in the stage bing red-flagged when Mikkelsen drifted wide in a leafy section and clattered a wooden fence. The impact caused significant damage to the front of his i20 N, but luckily he and co-driver Torstein Eriksen escaped unscathed.
With the car partially blocking the road officials had no option but to halt the stage.
In WRC2, Nikolay Grayazin led the class ahead of the afternoon’s pass through the three stages that will conclude Friday’s running.
