Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin maintained their lead on Rally Sweden after another seven blisteringly fast stages but came under intense pressure from his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston.
Kalle Rovanperä took his first Rally Sweden stage win to get the day underway. Katsuta pipped Evans by 0.5 seconds, bringing the overall lead down to just one tenth of a second. Tänak was 1.6 seconds off the lead while Fourmaux was drifting away from the fight.
On stage 10, Evans pipped Rovanperä by 0.4 seconds while Tänak had an issue – he wouldn’t say what the problem was at the stage end interview but he lost time on the next stage as well, losing his podium place to Neuville who won the last stage of the morning loop.
Fourmaux was only tenth quickest on stage 11 and dropped to sixth overall behind a resurgent Rovanperä 9.8 seconds up the road.
Munster was second on the road and was 1’56.3’ off the pace, looking all at sea and a shadow of the driver who took his maiden stage win in Monte Carlo three weeks ago.
Whatever the issue was with Fourmaux’s and Tanak’s Hyundais, it was sorted at the midday service and the two troubled drivers bounced back in style. Fourmaux took the stage win with Tänak one second behind and Evans 0.2 seconds further back.
Katsuta overshot a corner and had to reverse out, losing only 4.4 seconds but it allowed Evans some breathing space at the top of the leaderboard with a six second overall lead, while Tänak found himself 11.3 seconds adrift of the top spot, and shadowed by Neuville, 2.6 seconds behind in fourth.
“I overshot and backed up, I don’t know how much I lost. It was a stupid mistake but this is the first time I made a mistake this weekend so it is okay. I want to continue on. I feel very confident we can get the time back and will try not to make a mistake again,” the Toyota star reported at the end of the stage.
Stage 13 claimed the first major scalp – Fourmaux ran wide into a snowbank, and the front end of the Hyundai dug in. Although he tried to power the car out, it was beached up to the chassis. The frozen crew tried – in vain – to dig themselves out and were forced to throw in the towel, a fate that also befell Tuukka Kauppinen earlier in the day.
The final forest stage, SS 14, saw Neuville bank another stage win, one second quicker than Katsuta and 2.4 seconds up on Tänak. Evans dropped 2.6 seconds to Katsuta to end the serious business with a six second lead with the third Umeå Sprint left to run.
Evans had a moment with a snowbank, oh-so-close to ‘doing a Fourmaux’ but he got away with it. “It wasn’t a big hit with a bank, pretty low grip and I lost the front on the way in. The speed wasn’t so wrong, just the angle of the car was wrong. It hurts a bit down the next straight,” said Evans after his heart-stopping moment in stage 14.
The final stage saw Evans go into a sharp corner a bit too hot and he half spun and stalled, losing three seconds to Katsuta; the inter team fight was three seconds going into Super Sunday while lurking ever closer to the lead, Neuville was 3.3 seconds behind the Japanese driver and 6.3 seconds off the top step of the podium.
Tänak held on to fourth in spite of managing issues, which he refused to elaborate on. Rovanperä started the day 23 seconds off the pace and ended the day 22.9 seconds behind Evans.
Martins Sesks held sixth, 12.2 seconds ahead of fellow newbie Sami Pajari who in turn was 22.2 seconds ahead of Josh McErlean. 40.1 seconds behind the Irishman, was Munster…
In WRC2, Oliver Solberg enjoyed a comfortable 39 second lead over Roope Korhonen with Mikko Heikkila up in to third.
