Kalle Rovanpera secured the leadership of the Chile Rally by closing the second stage in the lead with a 15.1 advantage over his first rival, teammate Elfyn Evans.
The two-time world champion made the difference first in the penultimate special stage, with the fog slowing down everyone except him and Thierry Neuville (winner of the test), then with the rain in the last stage – this time won by Adrien Fourmaux – but with Kalle still second.
Evans, on the other hand, preferred not to take risks, but this cost him the chance to take home the eventual victory. However, it must be understood: Toyota Gazoo Racing has not yet abdicated and wants to try to challenge Hyundai for the world title until the Rally Japan, so it needs the help of all its drivers to achieve this objective.
Meanwhile, with first and second positions now seemingly assigned, Ott Tanak managed to defend third position from the forceful return of Thierry Neuville. The Estonian completed the day 10 seconds ahead of the Belgian, but the latter could have also grabbed third place if he had dared more on SS12.
The result, however, is still very positive because Neuville lost only a few points to the first of his rivals for the championship – Tanak himself – while the other rival, Sébastien Ogier, was forced to retire due to having broken a component of the suspension of the his GR Yaris Rally1 today.
Tomorrow Super Sunday will award other important points for the titles, as well as the Power Stage. We’ll see what attitude Neuville will have and what Ott Tanak will have, confident that Ogier will give his all to bring home points after today’s retirement.
Adrien Furmaux completed the comeback, finishing in fifth place after an excellent day to say the least in terms of times. The Frenchman from M-Sport climbed back up to the Top 5 after losing it yesterday for arriving late at a Time Control. Today he showed off himself once again, making it clear that whoever were to sign him for next year could get a real bargain.
Sami Pajari recovers sixth position at the last minute, closing the day with a margin of 1″1 over Gregoire Munster. Esapekka Lappi, however, is the last of the drivers at the wheel of a Rally1, eighth and almost 3 and a half minutes behind the Dutch M-Sport.
In WRC2 Nikolay Gryazin closed the stage as leader thanks to the wheel change which dropped Oliver Solberg from first to fifth place in his class. The Russian, at the wheel of the first Citroen C3 Rally2, has an advantage of 16″8 over Gus Greensmith (Skoda TokSport) and 18″4 over teammate Yohan Rossel.
The second stage of the Chile Rally ends here. The event will resume tomorrow with SS13, the 18.62 kilometer Laraquete 1. The first car will enter the special at 1.23pm Italian time.
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