The fierce battle for the lead of WRC Central Europe Rally raged over Saturday’s six stages where Sebastian Ogier emerged at the end of the day with a 5.2 second lead over Ott Tänak with Elfyn Evans giving Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Manufacturers’ Championship hopes a boost in third.
The overnight leader, Thierry Neuville suffered a major setback in stage 11, the third of the day when he spun his Hyundai i20 N and a minute slater, went off the road altogether and got stuck in a ditch which cost the Belgian nearly 40 seconds which knocked him out of the lead and down into fourth position overall.
Neuville, hoping to claim his long awaited maiden WRC title needs to outscore Tänak by two points, but facing a 39.8 second deficit, may have to put the champagne back in the fridge until Rally Japan.
Four stages and 54km await on Sunday and as today’s action proved, nothing is certain in the WRC!
Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari held fifth and sixth places overall respectively, with Grégoire Munster in seventh. Adrien Fourmaux had a spin in stage nine, the first of the day, and was later forced to retire his Ford Puma with a differential problem.
Nikolay Gryazin and Citroen rule the WRC2 roost from the non-points scoring Oliver Solberg by 31 seconds, leaving Filip Mares in second and Miko Marczyk third in the premier support class.
