Elfyn Evans (above) made major strides towards his second WRC Rally Finland victory after the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver moved into full attack mode on Saturday’s penultimate leg.
The GR Yaris Rally1 driver was fastest on seven out of eight of the gravel road stages in the super-fast Finnish forests to extend a 6.9s lead at the start of the day into a commanding 32.1s buffer at the end of the leg, leaving Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai i20 N Rally trailing in his wake.
Rain showers early in the day played to the Evans’ strengths, and while Neuville grappled with wheelspin in the wet conditions, the 2021 Rally Finland winner excelled. The Welshman was equally at home in the repeated afternoon loop where the drying gravel roads became increasingly rutted.
With WRC points leader Kalle Rovanpera already sidelined by a crash on Friday, victory at this ninth FIA World Rally Championship round is essential for Evans — currently second in the points behind his Toyota teammate — to keep his title hopes alive. He was delighted with his performance on a demanding day that contained more than half the rally’s competitive distance.
“Obviously, it’s a nice position to be in, but of course there are still more stages to come tomorrow,” said Evans. “The focus will be on that now and we’ll try to keep doing the same.”
Although Neuville struggled to get his Hyundai’s setup dialed in for the changeable conditions, the Belgian was consistently quicker than the remainder of the field. Toyota driver Takamoto Katsuta, his closest challenger, lagged almost one minute behind in third.
Katsuta had dropped behind Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen after spinning in the morning’s first run through the Paijala stage, but charged back to reclaim the final podium spot in the first stage after the lunchtime service halt. He yielded the position again in the following test, then surged back in front by posting a benchmark time through the day’s closing stage, Vekkula 2. The pair were split by just 6.4s at the overnight halt.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala was fifth overall, two minutes further back. The 38-year-old Finn, who is making his first WRC start since February 2020 to gain a better understanding of the current breed of hybrid Rally1 cars, overshot a junction in the day’s penultimate stage, but relished the chance to drive on his home roads again.
Oliver Solberg is not registered to score WRC2 points this week but climbed to sixth overall in his Skoda Fabia RS. Behind him, Sami Pajari is in line to celebrate victory in WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, after his closest challenger, Jari Huttunen, retired.
The 21-year-old Pajari had set the pace for much of Friday’s opening leg, but fell behind Huttunen as a result of a left-front puncture. He trailed his fellow Finn and Skoda Fabia RS driver by 12.9s heading into the penultimate day, but clawed back an amazing 10.0s in the wet-weather opener, the 11.77-mile Vastila 1 stage.
After being caught napping, Huttunen then doubled his buffer with a strong response on the legendary roads of the 12.54-mile Paijale stage, but later pulled off the road in the second pass of Vekkula. A technical issue meant he went no further and promoted Pajari back to the WRC2 top spot.
The youngster, who sits seventh in the overall rally standings, leads M-Sport Ford Fiesta MkII driver Adrien Fourmaux by 33.9s going into Sunday’s short final leg. Victory in Finland would be the first at this level for Pajari and his co-driver, Enni Malkonen.
Just four tests covering 32.09 competitive miles make up Sunday’s final leg. Drivers face two runs each on the classic roads of Moksi-Sahloinen and Himos-Jamsa. The second pass of the latter forms the bonus points-paying, rally-closing Wolf Power Stage.
WRC Rally Finland, leading positions after Day Two, SS18
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2h08m07.0s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +32.1s
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m27.8s
4 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m34.2s
5 Jari-Matti Latvala/Juho Hanninen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +3m39.5s
6 Oliver Solberg/Wlliott Edmondson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2/non-points) +8m05.0s
7 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 leader) +8m17.5s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Fiesta MkII – WRC2) +8m51.4s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Sloda Fabia RS – WRC2) +9m42.7s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +10m02.6s
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