Toyota also dominated the morning lap of the second leg of Rally Latvia. Kalle Rovanpera won Special Stage 12, the 12.64-kilometer Vecpils 1, stopping the clock at 5’52″1.
The reigning 2-time world champion has thus increased his advantage over the first of his pursuers, who from the previous race is Sébastien Ogier. Now, between the two, there is more than half a minute: to be precise 34″8.
Ogier, for his part, did what was required of him, that is, overtake Martins Sesks and secure the double. The champion from Gap, however, has a margin of just 6 tenths of a second over his direct rival. For this reason, he will have to increase his pace in the afternoon if he wants to consolidate his position.
Martins Sesks failed to match yesterday’s performance today but remains third with a lead of just under 10 seconds over Ott Tanak. It was a great morning for the Estonian from Hyundai Motorsport, who reclaimed fourth place after slipping to sixth in the final test last night due to a brake failure.
Important change in the general classification with Adrien Fourmaux and Elfyn Evans who took advantage of a difficult special stage for Takamoto Katsuta. The Japanese rider blew a tire and lost almost 50 seconds from the best, thus slipping from fifth to seventh position.
A nice move especially for Evans, who gains a position and goes back to distance himself by one place from the leader of the World Championship, Thierry Neuville, eighth after having recovered a position on Gregoire Munster this morning. Speaking of the Dutchman of M-Sport, in the last test of the morning he also lost ninth place in favor of Esapekka Lappi.
As for WRC2, Oliver Solberg continues to manage his advantage over Mikko Heikkila, the first of the pursuers. The Finn, however, is in full battle with his compatriot Sami Pajari, third, and eager to obtain the second place in the category after having won in the last 2 seasonal outings.
The morning lap ends here. Today the drivers can take advantage of the mid-day Service to prepare the cars for the afternoon lap that will start with the Special Stage 13, the Podnieki of 10.09 kilometers. The first car will enter the test at 15:15 Italian time.
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