Ott Tänak cuts Rovanperä's Rally Croatia lead
Ott Tänak blew the Croatia Rally wide open on Saturday morning when he slashed Kalle Rovanperä's lead by more than a minute. The Estonian had trailed the dominant Finn by more than 80sec overnight. After the cancellation of the opening speed test, he ate into over-cautious Rovanperä's advantage by 10sec in the next special stage.
But the big turnaround came in the morning's Platak test, close to Rijeka on the Adriatic coast. In contrast to the dry start to the day, the more westerly location brought pouring rain and thick fog as the roads snaked up to a ski resort. Tänak and Rovanperä were the only two frontrunners with Pirelli's wet weather rubber on all four corners. While Tänak claimed fastest time in his Hyundai i20 N, a front left puncture on his rival's Toyota GR Yaris meant he conceded 54.5sec.
Tänak nibbled back a further 1.4sec in the morning's closing test to leave him only 16.8sec adrift as crews returned to Zagreb for the mid-leg service. He acknowledged the weather in Platak was a real eye-opener: "I guess in these conditions you don?t care about the time, you're just happy to make it through," he admitted. "It was like a different place in the world. On the small road there was quite a lot of standing water so you have quite a bit of aquaplaning.
"On the big road with visibility where you can only see the bonnet it was fast. But in the fast if you don't know where to go, driving blind was quite a challenge as well."
FIA World Rally Championship leader Rovanperä has plenty of time at service to think about how hard he would fight to repel Tänak in the afternoon's re-run of the stages. Craig Breen held third despite an overshoot, the Irishman had 26.2sec in hand over Thierry Neuville, whose weekend took another twist when his i20 N was pushed into service early this morning. A 10sec penalty for leaving a minute late added to his 60sec overnight punishment for speeding on Friday.
Neuville was fastest in SS12 and was 37.2sec clear of fifth-placed Elfyn Evans, who won the opening test in a Toyota GR Yaris. Takamoto Katsuta rounded off the top six, but the Japanese pilot was more than two minutes adrift of the Welshman after an overshoot.
23rd April, 2022