Ott Tanak makes a mistake and the leadership of the Chile Rally immediately changes hands. Elfyn Evans won Special Test 2 of the South American event, the 13.34 kilometer Rere 1 (the shortest test today), becoming the reference in the general classification.
The Welshman from Toyota Racing stopped the clock in 6’52″9, 1″5 faster than his rival for the world title, teammate Kalle Rovanpera. In a test held on a mixed surface, i.e. dry and partly muddy due to the rains of the last few days, Evans continued to push to open the gap as wide as possible from Kalle and think he could manage it already in the second stage scheduled for tomorrow.
Rovanpera, for his part, put in an excellent performance despite having opened the special, so much so that he put everyone behind him except his teammate, i.e. the rival par excellence between now and the end of the season which will end in Japan in November.
Pierre-Louis Loubet continues to perform well, third, making good use of an excellent starting position. Thanks to this result, the Frenchman was the best placed M-Sport driver due to a mistake made by Ott Tanak.
The now former leader of the rally, in the last sector of the test, spun, losing the rear of his Ford Puma during a right-hand bend. Luckily for him, he remained on the road without hitting anything, so he was able to restart and finish the special stage, despite losing the leadership and second place in the general classification.
Thierry Neuville fared a little better than in the previous special. Fourth place, 2.5 seconds behind Evans proves it, but he himself underlined how several things need to be changed about the set-up, especially working on the suspension, to find the grip that he would have liked to have had since the first special stage of the event.
Even Teemu Suninen wasn’t the author of a flawless performance. First at the first intermediate stage of the test, the Hyundai Motorsport Finn then made a mistake on the approach to a bridge, losing several seconds which led him to finish fifth, 2.9 seconds behind Evans.
This result keeps him in second place in the general classification, but the lead is just a tenth of a second away. Already in the last test of today’s morning lap, everything could change. Maybe in favor of him.
Worth highlighting is the good time of Gregoire Munster, making his debut this weekend at the wheel of a hybrid Rally1 car. After having encountered problems with the electrical components and the turbo of the Ford engine, the Dutchman seems to have found answers from the latter and the time of this special was a good injection of confidence for the continuation of his adventure. The other rookie on a Rally1, the home idol Alberto Heller, was also not bad, but 3″4 slower than in Munster.
Change at the top in WRC2, with Sami Pajari new leader. The Finn from Skoda TokSport took the best time in the category, but was also helped by the spins of Oliver Solberg and Yohan Rossel.
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