The final test of the Saturday morning lap of Rally Sweden brought more excitement and several changes in the general standings of the second event of the 2023 WRC.
Kalle Rovanpera confirmed his great form on the snow by winning the PS11, the 17.28 km Savar 1, a very technical test where, not surprisingly, the three best drivers of the current WRC make the difference.
Rovanpera, stopping the clock in 8’07″2, did just 1 second better than Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak, both credited with the same time but with the Belgian ahead of the Estonian by a matter of cents.
For Rovanpera it is the second stage victory in a row, but above all another stage in which he managed to make up ground on Esapekka Lappi and get close to third position.
A lot has also changed for Ott Tanak, because the M-Sport driver has returned to greatly reduce his gap that separates him from the leader of the rally, Craig Breen, taking advantage of the Irishman from Hyundai Motorsport’s lack of knowledge of the stage.
Now the margin between the two is back to 2″6 in favor of Breen, after the latter had managed to take him over 5 seconds in the two opening tests of today’s morning lap. The fight for victory remains more than open and the feeling is that during the afternoon it will be able to reserve further surprises.
The general classification saw another important change, because Thierry Neuville, thanks to the second time obtained in cohabitation with Tanak and the simultaneous seventh time trial of Elfyn Evans, managed to climb to fifth position. After a complex start, the Belgian is moving up the standings, but now trying to battle with Rovanpera won’t be easy at all.
Instead, it will be interesting to understand the team’s strategy linked to the tires for the afternoon lap, in which there will be 4 tests to be carried out – and not three as in the morning – and the background will be much more ruined by the passage not only of the Rally1 cars, but also of all other categories.
As for WRC2, Oliver Solberg (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2) continues to lead the class classification with a margin of 31″4 over the first of his pursuers, the Norwegian Ole-Christian Veiby (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5). Third place for Jari Huttunen, who however is fighting for the lowest step of the podium with the young Sami Pajari, fourth at 6″2 from him.
The Saturday morning ride ends here. Rally Sweden will resume this afternoon with Special Stage 12, the 12.54 kilometer Norrby 2. The first car will enter the special at 14:05 Italian time.
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