Sébastien Ogier continues to lead a TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team lock-out of the top five places at Rally Islas Canarias, but just 3.8 seconds separate him and Oliver Solberg with one day remaining.
Ogier brought a lead of 8.9s over Solberg into the day’s two loops of three stages in the mountains of Gran Canaria, but it was fourth-placed Elfyn Evans who made the strongest start to the day. He edged out Solberg by 0.1s for the best time in SS9 to Maspalomas, regaining third overall from Sami Pajari, before excelling when rain arrived in SS10, where he was fastest by 2.5s.
There were more tricky wet conditions in SS11 – the longest stage of the rally at 28.9 kilometres – but only 0.1s separated Solberg and Ogier for the best time. Still, over the course of the morning, Solberg had reduced Ogier’s lead to 5.3s returning to Las Palmas for mid-day service.
There remained hardly anything to split the two drivers during the afternoon, and they even shared the quickest time in SS13. Solberg was then fastest by 1.4s in SS14, reducing Ogier’s advantage to 3.8s.
Evans scored another stage win in the afternoon’s second pass of Maspalomas and is third overall tonight, 21.9s from the lead. Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta complete the top five.
GR Yaris Rally2 driver Alejandro Cachón remains second in the WRC2 category. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto was running eighth in the class until he damaged a wheel and tyre in the day’s final stage and conceded over two minutes.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been very exciting to follow the battle between our drivers today. The pace is high and the times have been so close. When Seb and Oliver set identical times, it tells me that you cannot drive that stage any faster than that! Normally I’m nervous when our drivers are fighting, but they have been driving so cleanly and consistently that I’ve had nothing to be worried about. I’m happy to let them drive and enjoy watching the best drivers pushing flat-out in the best car. The final day will be really interesting to follow as well, and I’m sure all our guys will be giving their all.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Today was a good step forward. The first two stages this morning went well for us. Conditions were very changeable on that second stage and also on the third one, where I wasn’t able to trust the grip so well and gave away a lot of time. We got another stage win this afternoon, and the middle stage was very close against Seb and Oliver. Unfortunately we had to use a soft tyre on the long last stage, which hampered us a bit, but overall I’m happier with how things have progressed. We’ll try to make more improvements tonight and see what we can challenge for tomorrow.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“It’s been really enjoyable today: this is just the kind of fight that we love to have. Oliver has been driving perfectly today, and it wasn’t bad for us either. We lost a bit of ground this morning: the second stage especially was tricky and we took a safe approach, then tried to push more in the next one and got unlucky with the rain at the end. In the end, the gap is still in our favour and the strategy for Super Sunday is very simple now: we just have to push to the maximum. It’s going to be an intense one with new stages and I’m looking forward to it.”
Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It’s been an absolutely incredible fight today. With the changeable conditions it was tricky this morning and easy to do a mistake, but we managed to catch a bit of time, and then a bit more in the last stage this afternoon. Seb is a hero of mine and it’s so cool to be able to fight with him on a pure asphalt rally when this car is still new to me, and I’m also still learning a lot from him. Tomorrow if I have the possibility to fight until the end then great, but my main goal is to secure good points after the last couple of rallies we’ve had.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Today was so much better than yesterday for me. It was a big step forward in terms of feeling. The car feels much more comfortable and working the way that I want, so I’m quite happy with that. When the conditions are trickier like with the rain this morning then it’s working well, but when the conditions are more demanding in terms of tyre management, I’m not using the tyres so well, so that’s something important to still try to improve tomorrow.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s been another interesting day. I’m maybe a bit disappointed with my performance during the morning loop. For some reason, I just wasn’t able to find the confidence to push in those tricky conditions, and we lost way too much time. But we didn’t give up, we tried to maximise the afternoon loop and I think we did the best that we can. I hope we can maximise tomorrow as well. I’m looking forward to it and hope we have some nice weather so we can really enjoy the stages.”
End of day three (Saturday):
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h58m05.7s
2 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +3.8s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +21.9s
4 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +52.7s
5 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m03.1s
6 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m54.5s
7 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m26.3s
8 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m28.3s
9 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +3m53.8s
10 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +4m55.0s
(Results as of 18:10 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
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