Kalle Rovanpera tamed challenging wet conditions to lead a Toyota 1-2-3 at Rally Finland as the Finn made a strong start to his bid for a maiden World Rally Championship home win.
The reigning world champion, running a part-time programme, head title contender and team-mate Elfyn Evans by 8.0s after 10 stages.
Eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier was third [+8.6s] as championship leader Thierry Neuville was the sole remaining Hyundai in fourth [+25.5s].
M-Sport-Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux [+48.5s], Toyota debutant Sami Pajari [+1m31.0s] and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster rounded out the top seven [+1m52.7s.].
Seven Rally1 cars completed the day after Hyundai duo Ott Tanak and Esapekka Lappi retired along with Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta, who damaged his right rear suspension after hitting a tree in stage five in the morning.
Hyundai’s difficult start to the rally worsened as Friday afternoon began just moments after the team confirmed that Tanak had retired from the event completely following a high-speed crash in stage three. Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja were declared “well” by the team, but the latter will spend the night in hospital as a precaution.
Lappi, who led Hyundai’s charge in Tanak’s absence in fourth position, was caught out by a section of deep ruts in stage six [Laukaa 17.96km], which bounced his i20 N into a tree ripping the right rear wheel from the car.
“The ruts were really deep, but I was not expecting I would bounce off from these ruts as they were so deep, I didn’t think it would be possible. I arrived at this place much slower than the first pass. I jumped out of the ruts and then I couldn’t do anything as it was so close to the trees,” said Lappi who was confident he would rejoin the rally on Saturday.
Despite the tricky wet and rutted roads, it was Rovanpera who was able to tame the conditions to win the stage in the drizzle to extend his rally lead, to 4.7s.
However, the Finn’s nearest rival on the stage was rookie Pajari, now able to show his pace in a fully repaired GR Yaris after his stage two excursion.
“After the morning loop, it’s [like] another day completely. The conditions are now much more stable, but I had a really clean run. It was really nice to drive,” said Pajari, who climbed to sixth overall behind Neuville and the improving Fourmaux after Lappi’s demise.
Rovanpera, now much happier with the balance of his GR Yaris, impressed on the slippery wet gravel to claim stage seven [Saarikas 15.93km]. A stunning final split resulted in the Finn pipping Evans by 3.1s to increase his lead over the Welshman to 7.8s, with Ogier, 12 seconds adrift in third.
“It’s really difficult, without the rain it is getting a bit easier in places, but it is big mess [on the road] for us also. I am not taking any risks in this condition,” said Rovanpera.
Neuville arguably had the best of the road conditions, and while the Belgian inherited fourth his mind was not on the podium chase, stating; “we are not thinking about the podium we are thinking about surviving and keeping an eye on Elfyn.”
However, Neuville did offer a glimpse at his potential by setting the fastest time in stage eight [Myhinpaa, 15.51km] which featured plenty of standing water. Neuville faced the best of the road surface that became progressively worse, to stop the clocks 1.3s faster than Ogier.
“You have no option you just go for your line and pray for the best. The commitment needs to be 100%. Two years missing [the event] here makes it more challenging,” said Ogier.
Evans managed to claw 1.3s back from Rovanpera to reduce the gap to the rally leader to 6.5s with only 9.7s covering the top three.
Rovnapera responded in stage nine [Ruuhimaki, 7.76km] which was the first dry stage of the day. The Finn was 1.8s faster than Evans to push the lead out to 8.3s with one stage remaining.
But it was debutant Pajari who grabbed the headlines by recording a maiden WRC stage win in only his ninth test in the top flight. The Toyota driver, who started the day with a wild moment that damaged his GR Yaris, took the stage win by 0.5s from Ogier.
Ogier did however end the day with a stage win after claiming the Harju super special that concluded the day. The Frenchman took the spoils by 0.2s from Neuville.
In WRC2, Oliver Solberg led the class by 31.3s from Citroen's Nikolay Gryazin.
Six stages await the crews on Saturday including the return of the famous Ouninpohja test.
