Kalle Rovanpera moved ahead of Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans to lead Rally Chile as thick fog turned the fight for the World Rally Championship victory on its head.
The reigning world champion started Saturday in third but emerged through treacherous weather and incredibly poor visibility to head overnight leader Evans by 15.1 seconds going into Sunday’s final four stages.
Rovanpera took the provisional 18 points for topping Saturday’s classification as Evans scooped up 15 points.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak’s tyre gamble didn’t pay off as he dropped to third, 33.6s adrift (13 points) while championship leader Thierry Neuville hauled himself into the fight in fourth [+43.7s, 10 points].
M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux ended the day in fifth [+1m23.0s] ahead of Toyota young gun Sami Pajari [+1m49.5s] and the second full-time M-Sport entry driven by Gregoire Munster [+1m50.6s], with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi a distant eighth [+5m14.6s].
Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier retired from ninth position after hitting a rock in the morning’s stage eight, while M-Sport’s Martins Sesks completed the six stages after rejoining the rally following a double puncture on Friday.
Chile’s abrasive stages coupled with unpredictable weather made tyre choice incredibly difficult to call for the crews.
Rally leader Evans, Rovanpera, Neuville and Lappi opted for four hards and two softs in the hope rain might arrive while Tanak, Munster, Fourmaux and Sesks plumped for six hards.
Stage 10 (Pelun, 15.65km), the first of the afternoon loop, was devoid of any rain and was much drier than the first pass but there were patches of fog.
Evans triumphed in the first pass of the mountainous stage and repeated the feat in the afternoon. The rally leader was 2.3s faster than Rovanpera to extend his advantage over his team-mate to 13.6s.
Rovanpera was, however, a little concerned over his tyre choice, stating: “It is really hard to tell how fast to go on the downhill as you don’t want to kill the tyres. We have two hard tyres with us again so we hope that works for us.”
Tanak was third fastest, 3.3s adrift, 1.5s quicker than Neuville. There was a position change behind as Fourmaux climbed ahead of his team-mate Munster into sixth overall.
The difficulty level went up another notch in stage 11 (Lota, 25.64km) as thick fog blanketed the middle section of the stage reducing visibility to 20 metres in places. This was sandwiched by a dry section at the start and a wet and muddy final part.
The stage proved to be a turning point in the rally as the fog became increasingly thick after each pass.
Munster described the situation as “driving blind” while Evans said “he couldn’t see beyond his bonnet” as he suffered the worst of the conditions.
As a result, Evans was reduced to a crawl in the fog losing 24.1s and the rally lead in the process.
“I don’t know how you are meant to rally in those conditions,” said a frustrated Evans at the stage end as he dropped 5.5s behind new rally leader Rovanpera.
Rovanpera emerged as the star of the stage as he somehow managed to deal with the poor visibility to lose only five seconds to eventual stage winner Neuville.
“It was really bad, I don’t think I’ve ever driven in that kind of condition in a rally car,” said Rovanpera.
Neuville seemingly benefited from running through the stage slightly earlier than his rivals. The Belgian started the stage 53.6s off the lead but ended the test only 35s adrift and 14.2s behind third-placed Tanak.
M-Sport duo Fourmaux and Munster climbed to fifth and sixth overall as they leapfrogged a cautious Pajari, who chose to back off in the fog and dropped to seventh.
Lappi became further adrift of the Rally1 pack in eighth after mistakenly checking into the stage early, resulting in a two-minute penalty.
The stage was later red flagged as conditions worsened.
The fog eased for stage 12 (Maria las Cruces, 28.31km), but the rain then arrived, benefiting those that had taken soft tyres.
Fourmaux took the stage win by 0.8s from Rovanpera, who managed to maximise his two soft tyres to extend his rally lead.
Evans felt he lacked commitment during his run as he saw the deficit to his team-mate expand to 15.1s.
Tanak was left even more frustrated given the team’s weather prediction led him to choose hard tyres that proved to be the wrong compound.
“They say no rain expected this evening - obviously it was completely wrong information,” said Tanak. “Everything is difficult in this life, still you need to be on it.”
Elsewhere, Pajari managed to recover sixth overall from Munster after pipping the Ford driver by five seconds.
Oliver Solberg’s hopes of sealing the WRC2 title suffered a blow when he stopped to change a wheel in the foggy stage 11. That dropped the Swede from the class lead to fourth behind Nikolay Gryazin, Gus Greensmith and Yohan Rossel.
Four stages await the crews on Sunday to conclude Rally Chile.
