The first part of Friday’s final lap at Rally Finland saw an exciting back and forth between Ott Tanak and Esapekka Lappi.
The leader of the race, Ott Tanak, won the Assamaki 1 by 12.31 kilometers, ahead of Esapekka Lappi by 2 “1 and the leader of the World Championship Kalle Rovanpera by 2” 2.
This result has brought the advantage of the Hyundai Motorsport driver to 8 “3 over Lappi, while Elfyn Evans – third overall – is already at 15” 3 and in full battle for the lowest step of the podium with Rovanpera.
Esapekka Lappi responded in kind to Tanak by winning Special Stage 8, the Sahloinen-Moksi 1 by 15.70 kilometers, ahead of the Estonian by 2 “1. This brought the Hyundai Motorsport driver’s advantage back to 6” 2.
Excellent test of the Toyota Racing driver, who made the difference between the second and fourth (last) sector of the test, in which he built his advantage with which he won the test.
Kalle Rovanpera got even closer to Elfyn Evans. Now the Welshman has just 1 second ahead of the leader of the World Championship when there are 2 races left at the end of the first day of the race on the fast Finnish dirt roads.
Craig Breen lost several seconds due to heavy compression that damaged his Ford Puma Rally1. During the transfer he tried to stop to fix the problem and seems to have succeeded.
The one who is in serious trouble is Jari Huttunen. The Finn, making his debut at the wheel of the Ford Puma Rally1, was forced to stop several times in the second part of the special due to a loss of fuel pressure which occurred several times.
Huttunen’s Ford Puma normally works in road mode, therefore with the mapping designed for transfers, but as soon as stage mode is triggered, the thrust mapping used in testing, the engine has strong power cuts that make it shut down. It will be very difficult for Jari to be able to continue the race, at least today.
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