Kalle Rovanpera dominated Saturday’s stages to open up a commanding Rally Latvia lead over Toyota World Rally Championship team-mate Sebastien Ogier.
The reigning world champion set a rapid pace to claim six of the eight stages and transform an overnight 15.7s advantage to a 42.5s lead [18 provisional points] heading into Sunday’s final four stages.
M-Sport’s local star Martins Sesks started Saturday in second but narrowly lost a fight with eight-time world champion Ogier to end the day a highly commendable third [+47.2s – 13 points].
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak survived a strange run-in with a promotional arch to finish fourth [+1m08.0s], bagging 10 provisional championship points. Tanak fared the best of the title contenders as Toyota’s Elfyn Evans reached service in sixth [+1m34.3s – six points], while championship leader Thierry Neuville picked up three points in eighth [+2m33.9s].
M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux completed the day in fifth with Takamoto Katsuta eighth, while Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster rounded out the top 10.
Saturday afternoon’s loop followed a similar narrative to the morning with Rovanpera setting a blistering pace at the front.
The Toyota driver set the benchmark time in Stage 13 [Podnieki 10.09km] to claim his ninth stage win of the rally. Rovanpera was 2.6s faster than nearest rival Ogier.
Ogier wasn’t happy with his morning loop and was eager to unlock more pace from his GR Yaris. While the Frenchman couldn’t beat his team-mate, he did pip Sesks by 0.2s to increase the gap to the M-Sport Rally1 rookie to 0.8s.
Sesks’ impressive pace offered the Latvian relative breathing space in the form of a 10.4s gap to fourth-placed Tanak.
Fourmaux headed into the stage with only an eight-second margin over Evans in the battle for fifth after losing time to the Welshman across the morning. A set-up change on his Puma at midday service provided more traction helping the Ford driver to a time 2.7s faster than Evans.
Fourmaux’s team-mate Munster was fortunate to survive a wild moment over a crest that ripped the front splitter and arch from his Puma.
Stage 14 provided one of the most bizarre moments of the WRC season when an inflatable arch was felled, which brought out the red flags.
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans ran wide at the right-hander before the arch, collecting a couple of advertising hoardings before returning to the road after clipping the arch.
“A bit of a silly mistake. I tried not to be too aggressive loading the car and got caught out,” said Evans.
Tanak was the next car to arrive at the section, where he collected the felled arch, which draped his i20 N. Officials quickly red-flagged the stage while Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja attempted to remove the arch from the car.
Tanak, sitting in fourth, was clearly angered by the strange incident and took aim at race control.
“I think this exactly describes how we are in safe hands in terms of race control. Probably they were having a nice meal and good wine when on the cameras you could see the road is blocked and there is a car coming. Well done race control, you are really taking care of us," said Tanak on the television broadcast.
“We are ok but f****** hell, you could see the road was blocked and you keep it running. Hopefully, it was a good wine.”
Tanak was awarded a nominal second fastest time while Katsuta and Fourmaux, who were also delayed by the red flag, were handed a notional time.
Rally leader Rovanpera won the restarted test by 3.9s to extend his lead over Ogier to 41.3s.
Ogier issued a response to his team-mate on the penultimate stage of the day to take 0.3s from the Finn and win the short 6.64km gravel blast.
Tanak took 0.5s from Sesks to apply more pressure on the Latvian as the gap to third was reduced to 6.3s.
Rovanpera wrapped up the day with a stage win on the asphalt streets of host city Liepaja by 0.1s from Katsuta.
The technical test provided another wild moment for Tanak, who hit a hay bale after his i20 N’s driveshaft broke. Luckily, it didn’t prevent him from reaching the service park.
Oliver Solberg led the WRC2 class into the final day from Mikko Heikkila and Sami Pajari with four Sunday stages remaining.
