Thierry Neuville completed the job by winning 2 of the three special stages of the afternoon lap held so far, completing the comeback and grabbing fourth place in the general classification at the Rally Sweden.
The Hyundai Motorsport driver won SS13 and SS14, nibbling away all the 43 seconds he had behind Oliver Solberg and thus arriving at the foot of the podium. For the 35-year-old from Sankt Vith, an important result, because it allows him to be directly behind the first of his pursuers in the World Drivers' classification, namely Elfyn Evans.
The Belgian's comeback, which took him from 14th place to fourth, could conceivably have ended here. His delay to Elfyn Evans – who precedes him in the rally standings – is more than a minute. Therefore only a serious mistake by the person in front of him could allow him to recover further positions. But given how the race went, fourth place was still a very important result.
Elfyn Evans, meanwhile, didn't take her foot off the accelerator. Indeed, she is pushing ever harder with the aim of reducing her gap to Adrien Fourmaux and regaining second place. The Frenchman from M-Sport, however, continues to push hard, so much so as to keep the Welshman 13 seconds behind him in a challenge that will probably only be decided tomorrow.
In all of this, Esapekka Lappi decided to start managing his large lead over his pursuers after the retirement of Takamoto Katsuta who arrived this morning on SS10 due to an error that caused him to end up in a snow bank.
The Finnish driver from Hyundai Motorsport has over a minute's lead on Fourmaux with 4 special stages remaining until the end of hostilities and is ever closer to the second victory of his career in the WRC after the one obtained in 2017 at the Rally Finland.
Oliver Solberg continues to dominate the WRC2 with a minute advantage over the first of his pursuers, Sami Pajari at the wheel of the first Toyota GR Yaris Rally2. The Norwegian is not only the leader of WRC2, but is actually fifth overall. This afternoon he was overtaken by Thierry Neuville, but it doesn't matter. His position is already extraordinary in itself.
Behind Pajari we find 3 other GR Yaris Rally2, those of Roope Kohronen, Georg Linnamae and Mikko Heikkila. Lauri Joona closes the Top 10 with the second Skoda Fabia RS Rally2. Lorenzo Bertelli continues to be just outside the Top 10, 11th, but he is one minute behind Joona.
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