Kalle Rovanpera took a huge stride toward his third consecutive WRC Rally Estonia victory with a masterful performance on the high-speed Baltic event in Saturday’s second leg.
The 22-year-old Finn, who became the youngest ever WRC event winner on Estonia’s superfast gravel roads two years ago, reeled off nine consecutive fastest stage times in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (above) to demoralize Hyundai rival and early leader Thierry Neuville.
Reigning WRC champ and current points leader Rovanpera had relegated the Belgian to second overall early on Friday afternoon and started Saturday’s penultimate leg with a 3.0s advantage. Inspired by the cleaner line offered by his later starting position, he was simply untouchable.
Rovanpera outpaced Neuville on every single stage to stretch his advantage to 34.9s at the end of the leg, his Saturday surge strengthened further when the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 driver sustained a slow puncture in the 6.93-mile Otepaa 2 stage. Barring any major dramas through Sunday’s closing leg, he stands to extend his FIA World Rally Championship lead at this eighth of the 13 2023 rounds.
“For sure the feeling is nice,” said Rovanpera after Saturday’s final stage. “I have really enjoyed the afternoon especially. The car is working well and these are my favorite stages of the entire calendar, so why wouldn’t I be enjoying them at full speed? A lot of fans as well, so it’s really cool.”
Neuville admitted he’d been too hesitant in the morning’s opening pair of stages, but still posted second-best times on five occasions through the day’s nine stages. But with only four stages and 37.95 competitive miles remaining on Sunday, he conceded that overhauling Rovanpera would be a long shot.
“There’s just a little bit missing to match the pace of Kalle,” said Neuville, “but without the puncture I think it would have been a perfect day.”
Esapekka Lappi completed the overnight top three, 10.5s behind Hyundai teammate Neuville after a thrilling day-long battle with Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Elfyn Evans. The Welshman had reduced Lappi’s buffer to just seven-tenths of a second by the day’s midpoint, but fell to 7.3s behind the charging Finn over the course of the afternoon’s stages.
Teemu Suninen continued his trouble-free i20 N Rally1 debut to hold a distant fifth overall, 48.8s back from Evans. Behind him, M-Sport Ford’s Pierre-Louis Loubet was a further 44.0s in arrears, and collected a five-second time penalty for breaching hybrid strategy rules on Friday.
Seventh-placed Takamoto Katsuta moved to within 7.0s of Loubet, despite having a scare when his Toyota refused to restart at the finish line of Kanepi 1, while local hero Ott Tanak, whose five-minute penalty for a pre-event engine change has knocked him out of any real contention, climbed to eighth overall in front of his enthusiastic home fans.
In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Andreas Mikkelsen is on target to claim the second class victory of his 2023 campaign after controlling Saturday’s penultimate leg.
The Norwegian inherited the top spot when Oliver Solberg retired on Friday and has since delivered a lead-managing masterclass to maintain the distance between himself and fellow Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver Sami Pajari.
Mikkelsen, who’s yet to finish outside of the WRC2 podium in his two starts so far this season, didn’t claim a single stage win on Saturday, yet did more than enough to head Finland’s Pajari by 15.8s overnight, a relatively comfortable margin with only four stages remaining.
“It should be enough without anything happening,” Mikkelsen said of his buffer. “We just have to drive at a good pace tomorrow as well. We’ll start with a good push and see where we are.”
Sunday’s final leg is the shortest of the rally. Two identical loops of two stages are tackled before the podium ceremony in Tartu, Estonia’s second city. The rally-closing Kambja 2 test is the Wolf Power Stage, with bonus points available to the fastest crews.
WRC Rally Estonia, leading positions after Day Two, SS17
1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 2h05m29.3s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +34.9s
3 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +45.4s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +52.7s
5 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m41.5s
6 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Nicola Gilsoul (M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1) +2m25.5s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2m32.5s
8 Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveola (M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1) +5m55.2s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 leader) +7m37.1s
10 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +7m52.9s
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