Kalle Rovanperä impressed a lot yesterday with six of eight possible distance victories and had a lead of one minute and twenty-three seconds before Saturday's distances.

Rovanperä initially maintained its lead of over one minute in total on Saturday morning.

But on section 11 he got an early puncture on the left front tire and lost more than 50 seconds on the more than 15 kilometer long section.


At the same time, chasing Ott Tänak struck with a cannon time, distance victory with just over 18 seconds margin to the second fastest driver.

Tänak then suddenly had only 18.2 seconds up to leading Kalle Rovanperä.

During the lunch break, Tänak had shrunk the distance further and 16.8 seconds now separates the top duo before the afternoon's four distances.

Craig Breen is third 32.3 seconds behind Tänak.

- Ott has been really fast today so I think it will be a tricky afternoon, but we will see what we can do.

It is also important for us to score points, so we have to be smart, says Rovanperä to WRC.

Breen had a stable morning without major mistakes but was lucky on stretch twelve where he missed a brake point in a hairpin and slipped out of the way, but just managed to avoid both a fence and a wall.

Esapekka Lappi also had problems in the exact same place.


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Clad in the same gap between wall and fence

Time penalty to Neuville

Thierry Neuville finished Friday as second in the total after Kalle Rovanperä, but late last night the organizer announced that the Belgian had been awarded a time penalty, of one minute, for speeding on a transport route.

Neuville already had a time extension of 40 seconds after being late for a time check due to.

problems with the generator.  


The extra time for the speeding made him fall from second to fourth place in the total before today's distances.

Halfway through the day, Neuville remains in fourth place.

Oliver Solberg was forced to break for the day after driving off the road on the first leg of the day.

The Saturday stage is still in progress.