Thus ends the first part of this Saturday’s race which sees the crew composed of Rovanpera-Halttunen. The numerous delays of the special tests and the various cancellations greatly characterized this penultimate day of the race.
The young Finnish driver, who took the place of Ogier who was injured during the Recceis battling hard with his teammate Elfyn Evans.
The Welsh driver is only +0.4 behind Rovanpera and the race in the afternoon could have many twists and turns. During the morning the Welsh driver was always paired with his teammate but never managed to finish in front even once.
Third place goes to an excellent Andreas Mikkelsen. The part-time Hyundai driver, despite the months without getting into the car, is behaving with dignity, setting photonic times, also winning the penultimate test, the SS11 Black 1 to 22.40 km.
The Norwegian is only +2.7 off the top, so he too could be a troublesome competitor for the race win.
Fourth and fifth were the Ford Pumas Adrien Fourmaux and the new entry Martin Cesk. Fourmaux did very well in the first part of the day, proof of the fact that Ford has grown a lot, and a great debut for the Latvian Sesks who so far is not disfiguring at all. The young Ford driver is fully earning the trust of the team finding himself ahead of riders of Neuville’s caliber.
The Belgian is struggling a lot, especially due to the handbrake problems yesterday. His margin is wide, and he will try to continue his race without taking unnecessary risks. Behind the Belgian he finished in seventh provisional position Gregoire Munster, not comfortable during the morning.
He has practically never kept up with his teammates either, and the gap is very wide, but it is still all to be written. Closing the top 10 Takamoto Katsuta, Sami Pajari and Robert Virves. The Finnish Pajari manages WRC2 classification ahead of Virves on the Skoda Fabia with a wide margin of +32.6 and on the Swede Oliver Solberg at +35.5.
Now everyone to the service park to make the necessary changes for the afternoon, which has an appointment with the first test at 4pm with the SS13 Świętajno 2 of 18.50 km (delays permitting, ed.). Here is the ranking after the morning of the race:
Photo Credits: Luca Barsali
