Thierry Neuville is second in the World Rally Championship in Estonia, three seconds behind Kalle Rovanpera.
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Kalle Rovanperä leads the Estonian World Rally Championship after eight special stages.
The Finn won heats five and six on Friday, which put him in first place over Belgium by Thierry Neuville. This is only three seconds behind the top name in the World Series.
Rovanperä is leading the race despite being the first car on the gravel rally route.
“I didn’t really expect this. It’s always hard to know how much time you lose during the day plowing the road. Looks like we had a pretty clean day. I tried to push the whole time without mistakes, so it didn’t go any crazier,” said Rovanperä.
On Saturday, Rovanperä has the best starting position among the first category cars, so a third consecutive victory in Estonia is very possible.
“Of course, the plan is for Thierry to stay behind. Today he drove really well, but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow when we have roughly the same starting positions. But of course I hope that we can at least get to a good pace more easily”, thought Rovanperä.
Esapekka Lappi is 12.2 seconds behind Rovanperä and starts Saturday in third place.
During Friday morning’s special tests, the Pieksämäki player suffered from a hybrid unit failure, which ate up time. However, Lapland made up for the lack of power with a “glove”.
“In the morning, stupid risks were taken in a few places, when I wanted to minimize the loss of time. In the afternoon, the stupid risks were eliminated. I tried to drive sensibly and in a way normally,” Lappi said.
“Even with the difficulties, I am satisfied with the day. The driving was really good already in the morning and the same continued in the afternoon. An even day in terms of driving. It took a while here and there when I didn’t go up a notch.”
Teemu Suninen drives a Rally1 hybrid car in Estonia for the first time. Suninen, who competes with Hyundai equipment, is fifth in the rally after Friday. The gap to the top has accumulated by more than half a minute.
“At least I have carried out my task well. I’m here as the third driver, who has to bring as many points to the team as possible if something happens at the top. You have to be satisfied with your own pace. At least I’m not completely over the moon,” Suninen stated.
“Of course I could drive harder, but I have to keep the task clear. In this race, you can never drive without risks, but we try to minimize them.”
The home crowd favorite, Estonia Ott Tänak has driven the fastest speed. He has forged the bottom time of six eks, but he suffered a five-minute penalty for an engine change before the race and is therefore far from the top.
After Friday’s special tests, Tänak is in 11th place, 4 minutes and 47 seconds from the top.
Nine special tests will be run on Saturday.
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