A rare mistake from Sebastien Ogier has handed the Central European Rally lead to Hyundai’s Ott Tanak while World Rally Championship Rally1 rookie Sami Pajari rolled on Sunday morning.
Ogier started the final day of the rally with a 5.2-second margin over Tanak but a lock-up approaching a left-hander at the start of a bone dry but dirty stage 15 (Am Hochwald 12.17km) proved costly.
The eight-time world champion’s Toyota GR Yaris, last to start the stage, ran off the road onto grass before eventually rejoining the stage, an error that cost him valuable seconds.
Ogier reached the stage end 7.1s slower than Tanak, handing the Hyundai driver the rally lead by 1.9s.
"There was a lock-up for us and we went straight - all OK, it is the way it is,” said Ogier when asked about the incident.
The stage proved to be particularly tricky for the later runners as gravel and dirt had been dragged onto the surface after several anti-cut devices had been removed.
Tanak described it as having “dirty surprises” and being “very challenging” as he ultimately completed the test 3.8s slower than the pace set by the returning M-Sport-Ford driver Adrien Fourmaux, who was first on the road.
Elfyn Evans was second fastest on the stage to maintain third position overall. Toyota team-mate Takamoto Katsuta was third quickest, while Neuville was 0.2s faster than rival Tanak, although clearly frustrated by the lack of anti-cut devices.
“If I see the conditions in there, I don't want to push too much, there are many surprises,” said Neuville.
“I had a big slide immediately in the beginning. All the anti-cuts have moved and some have been removed, it's not nice. They are moved by just a tiny bit and the road is dirty.”
The challenging stage conditions were highlighted by Pajari, who rolled out of sixth position overall.
The Finn, making his third Rally1 outing and his first on asphalt, ran wide at a medium-left corner running into a ditch that pitched his GR Yaris into a roll. The car eventually came to a rest on its wheels but with damage to the front and rear of the car, which ended his rally early.
“It was so fast I don’t really know what happened,” said Pajari. “It is clear to see we went a bit wide on a corner and we rolled quite softly.
“The damage is not so bad on the car so maybe we could continue, but we don’t want to cause any more damage.
“It is quite a shame as it was quite a soft roll but I don’t know why it happened because, in my opinion, my pacenote was OK and there was nothing really surprising at that corner, so I don’t know why.”
Hyundai's Andreas Mikkelsen picked up a front-left puncture in the stage necessitating a wheel change.
Tanak continued to lead after stage 16 although his lead was reduced to 1.5s after Ogier took 0.4s out of the Estonian in the first pass of the stage that will act as the rally-ending Power Stage.
Katsuta took the stage win, his second of the rally, by 1.5s from Ogier to move into a tie with Fourmaux at the top of the Super Sunday standings. Katsuta did hit something on his way to the stage end that caused minor damage to the front of his GR Yaris.
