Special Stage 18 of Rally Finland was a taster of what the drivers will face in the Power Stage, which will take place at 12:15 Italian time.
Kalle Rovanpera, as he demonstrated throughout the weekend, was unbeatable, beating his teammate Sébastien Ogier by 2 tenths in the 4.35 kilometres of the third to last special stage of the ninth round of the season.
The Finn, in addition to leading the overall standings of his home rally, is also the leader of the Super Sunday and the main favourite for the Power Stage.
Meanwhile, Sébastien Ogier is closing in on Elfyn Evans in the Sunday standings, who still occupies second place but is now hunted by the 8-time world champion. It now seems clear that Ogier wants to take as many points as possible to get back into the mix for the world title.
Behind them, the fight for fourth place on Super Sunday is heating up. Esapekka Lappi has a 1.8″ lead over Takamoto Katsuta, but the Japanese Toyota Gazoo Racing driver must watch out for Thierry Neuville. The Belgian had better times on this special than in the previous one, returning to within 7 tenths of him.
This means that in the next two races the leader of the World Championship could try to recover at least one position – if not two – and thus significantly close the gap on Evans and Ogier, leaving them with a few points recovered on him.
Adrien Fourmaux and Sami Pajari now seem to be out of the game, both authors of two errors in the previous test and eager to confirm the excellent result achieved between Friday and Saturday in the general classification. Having no ambitions of the title, they will only have to bring home what they already achieved yesterday to be satisfied.
In WRC2, Oliver Solberg responded. The Norwegian won the stage with a few tenths of a second over Jari-Matti Latvala. But it was not so much the advantage gained, but the signal given to Toyota’s team principal: the gap between them was too wide to be filled in the two stages remaining until the end of hostilities.
#WRC #Rally #Finland #SS18 #Neuville #comeback #Super #Sunday
