Ott Tanak ignited his slim World Rally Championship hopes with a dominant drive to lead Rally Japan on Friday after a power issue proved costly for title favourite Thierry Neuville.
The Hyundai driver successfully navigated through the day’s eight stages to open up a 20.9s lead over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, with M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux in third, 1m53.9s back.
Tanak realistically needed team-mate Neuville to hit trouble in Japan to stand any chance of securing the title given the latter only requires six points to seal a maiden world title. His title hopes were given a boost in stage four when Neuville’s i20 N suddenly lost full power, resulting in the car limping through the stages in road mode.
As a result, Neuville ended the day outside of the points-paying positions in 15th, 7m41.3s adrift of Tanak.
Toyota’s attempt to overhaul Hyundai in the manufacturers’ title battle took a hit with Takamoto Katsuta and Sebastien Ogier suffering punctures on Friday morning. The pair recovered to slot into fourth [+1m54.0s] and fifth [+2m15.6s], while M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster survived a spin in stage four to sit sixth [+2m37.4s].
Unfortunately for Neuville the power issue was unable to be fixed in the midday tyre fitting zone. It meant the title favourite would haemorrhage time across the afternoon as he guided his wounded i20 N through the stages.
Neuville dropped 2m30.8s to title rival Tanak and slumped to ninth overall after stage five, the second pass through Isegami’s Tunnel.
"We couldn’t solve the issue. We will keep fighting and the hard work of the year is valuable now, 25-point [lead] has value now,” said a dejected Neuville.
In contrast team-mate Tanak delivered an inspired performance to win the stage and overhaul Evans to assume the rally lead.
The Estonian was 14.4s faster than Evans, who felt he had opted for the wrong tyre choice, having selected a package of three hards and three softs.
Meanwhile, the recovering Ogier, following his puncture on the same stage earlier this morning, emerged as Tanak’s nearest rival some 6.2s shy of the Hyundai driver.
Neuville’s issue handed Toyota’s Katsuta third overall ahead of M-Sport-Ford duo Fourmaux and Munster.
Mikkelsen, sitting sixth, survived a run-in with a bank earlier this morning but this time he was unable to recover from striking a bank that sent his i20 N careering into a tree. With the damaged car partially blocking the road stage five was briefly red-flagged to allow for the i20 N to be retrieved.
Tanak, who like Neuville opted to carry one spare, continued his charge to claim stage six to open up a 20.4s lead over Evans.
“I didn’t feel so bad in there, maybe I am over-driving or something. It might be that [Tanak is driving hard] but maybe he is driving better,” said Evans, who was 6.7s slower than Tanak.
Ogier once again came the closest to match Tanak’s pace as the eight-time world champion managed to leapfrog Munster into fifth overall.
Katsuta gambled with his tyre choice in anticipation of rain that didn’t arrive but his pace was still good enough hold off Fourmaux in the fight for third.
Neuville’s woes meant he dropped a further 2m08s before conceding 1m50.6s through stage seven (Shinshiro, 17.41km) - the last traditional stage of the loop as the light began to fade.
A delay in the schedule following Mikkelsen’s stage five crash meant the forest sections of the stage were particularly dark and difficult to navigate.
Evans managed to cope with the conditions the best as the Toyota driver took 0.4s out of Tanak to win the stage and reduce the Hyundai driver’s lead to 20.0s. Team-mate Ogier also battled with the decreasing visibility to clock the third fastest time.
However, an inspired decision to fit light pods to both M-Sport Ford Pumas at the tyre fitting zone paid dividends. Helped by the clearer visibility, Fourmaux set a blistering pace to leap ahead of Katsuta into third overall by 0.8s.
Katsuta pipped Tanak by 0.6s in the first pass of the 2.54km Okazaki Super Special that marked stage eight. Incredibly, Katsuta, Fourmaux and Evans set identical fastest times in the second pass (stage nine), with the former only 0.1s behind Fourmaux in the fight for third in the overall standings.
In WRC2, Sami Pajari remained on course to seal the title sitting second in class and eighth overall, albeit 1m13.5s behind class leader Nikolay Gryazin in seventh overall.
The rally continues on Saturday with seven stages scheduled, comprising 103.87 competitive kilometres.
