WRC | Safari Rally, PS13: Kalle handles. Odysseys for Neuville-Evans

The 2024 edition of the Safari Rally will certainly be remembered. Maybe it won't be up to the standard of the historic Safaris, but it can certainly be among the toughest rallies of the last decade.

Kalle Rovanpera closed the second stage of the third event of the 2024 WRC ahead of everyone, dominating and closing the penultimate day of competition with over 2 minutes ahead of the first of his rivals, teammate Takamoto Katsuta.

Rovanpera, who was able to take advantage of the best possible starting position both yesterday and today, created his margin over all the others both through his own merits, thanks to an excellent pace, but also due to mistakes and lack of luck of those who should have tried to put pressure on him.

First of all the two contenders for the world title, therefore Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans. The Welshman from Toyota completed the day in fourth place due to 3 punctures, 2 of these certainly due to driving errors by Elfyn.

Evans damaged two tires and ended up hitting some rocks on the side of the road, so nothing attributable to the tyres. This dropped him from second place to fifth. Yet, luckily for him, there are those who have had worse moments.

We are talking about the leader of the Drivers' World Championship, Thierry Neuville, who saw the engine of his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 fall silent just after taking second place in the general classification by taking advantage of Evans' misadventures and overtaking Takamoto Katsuta thanks to a good pace.

In the first special of today's afternoon lap, Neuville had to deal with a probable problem with the fuel pump, losing 11 minutes in the three afternoon tests. Thanks to a good advantage accumulated up to that point, the Belgian slipped to fifth place, just behind Evans.

Taking advantage of this were Takamoto Katsuta, who returned to second place, and Adrien Fourmaux in third with the first Ford Puma Rally1 in the standings, the only survivor among the officials after Gregoire Munster's retirement due to the failure of the left rear suspension during the lap morning.

The current situation, from the point of view of the general classification, would bring Fourmaux closer to Neuville and Evans, being third in the World Championship. Evans would be even closer to Neuville, but tomorrow will award other important points and the situation could change drastically.

For Hyundai the day ended with the windshield of Esapekka Lappi's i20 N Rally1 breaking. The car was hit by two large birds. The impacts caused the windscreen to crack, forcing the winner of the 2024 Rally Sweden to go at walking pace to avoid shattering it and damaging his (and Janne Ferm's) vision.

Gus Greensmith continues to dominate WRC2 with an almost 2 minute lead over teammate and rival Oliver Solberg. Furthermore, the two are in sixth and seventh place in the general classification, followed by the third Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 of Kajetan Kajetanowicz.

Jourdan Serderidis firmly occupies the Top 10, but Ott Tanak is behind him. The Estonian, after yesterday's retirement, is now just under 2 seconds from ninth place in the general after having returned to the Top 10 in the previous special.

The second stage of the 2024 Safari Rally ends here. The event will resume tomorrow morning with the third and final stage, which is made up of 6 special stages (3 to be repeated once). We remind you that, thanks to the new score, the last stage will award other important points for the World Championship, in addition to the usual ones guaranteed by the Power Stage to the top 5 classified in the event. Tomorrow's first test will be the 8.33 kilometer SS14 Malewa 1. The first car will enter testing at 05:02 Italian time.

WRC 2024 – Safari Rally – Ranking after SS13