Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin lost the lead of Rally Sweden twice, once to Takamoto Katsuta and once to Ott Tänak, but by the time the crews rolled into the stop control on the final Friday stage, the Toyota Gazoo Racing crew held a 0.6 second lead over Katsuta who won stage five and took the overall lead.
Evans struck back one stage later before succumbing to Tanak’s flying Hyundai i20 N on stage seven, dropping to third overall.
The final stage may have only been 5.1km long but it was enough for Evans to end the day clinging on to the lead from his on-form Japanese teammate.
The Welshman started the day in fine form, with the temperatures recording -12°C, bagging the opening stage scratch time before Hyundai’s coming man Adrien Fourmaux took two stage wins on the trot to keep Evans very much on his toes and under pressure.
Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak both complained of understeer, as did Kalle Rovanperä and Grégoire Munster in the lead M-Sport Ford Puma. All four bled time throughout the morning.
At the midday service, Evans led Fourmaux by 1.9 seconds with Tänak 4.3 seconds behind and 2.2 seconds ahead of Katsuta, the top four blanketed by 8.4 seconds. The leading Ford Puma belonged to rookie Rally1 driver Josh McErlean and Eoin Tracey, something of an indictment on Munster’s performance.
After service and some tweaking Katsuta, Tänak, Neuville and Evans each took a stage win and by the end of the day’s action, the top five were covered by 9.1 seconds!
Sami Pajari was flying on the day’s opening stage but gave a Valentine’s kiss to a snow bank, pulling a tyre off the rim which cost 40 seconds as the Yaris limped through the stage.
The other youngster in the field, Latvian Martins Sesks built up his speed over the day, recording the third fastest time on stage five as well as stage six as he builds his confidence of rallying on snow and ice and ended the day the fastest of the M-Sport quartet.
In Rally2, Oliver Solberg has a 20.7 second lead over Roope Korhonen having won five of the day’s seven stages. Georg Linnamäe lies third, some 45 seconds off the pace in spite of winning stage six.
Positions after SS8:
- Evans, Katsuta +1.9, Tänak +3.6, Fourmaux +9.3, Neuville +14.3
