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Esapekka Lappi has overcome a 16.3s deficit to Sebastien Ogier to lead Rally Italia Sardegna after Friday’s running.
The strong comeback from the Finn and a few iffy calls during midday service by Ogier and his team means it’s Lappi in front heading into Saturday’s second leg, albeit by a slender 0.1s after almost 140 timed kilometres.
The works Hyundai driver, who topped the order on Thursday night’s mixed-surface superspecial stage, gave himself hope with the fastest time on the repeat of the rough and ready Tantariles test to narrow Ogier’s lead to 8.7s.
He was quicker again than Ogier’s factory Toyota through the second pass of Terranova to make more inroads into his rival’s advantage, which was now down to 6.7s.
Then in the rain of Monte Lerno, a 49.90-kilometre brute run for the first time prior to service, only Kalle Rovanpera was faster than Lappi, who moved back into the lead as Ogier struggled.
“The main issue was in the service where we made a lot of wrong calls, wrong tyres, wrong set-up, it was not clever decisions we made and I suffered a bit with that this afternoon,” said Ogier, who was quickest through the first Monte Lerno pass by 12.7s and seemingly out of reach.
“I accepted to lose a bit of time, the rough sections are never really my favourite ones like in this first stage [after service] so I am happy we have that behind us now and we’re still in a good position to fight for the win.”
For Lappi, who was also ahead at the same stage in Mexico only to crash out, the afternoon couldn’t have gone better, save for a slow left-rear puncture on the Monte Lerno repeat.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s 0.5s or 0.1s, one-tenth is enough and there was no need to push harder,” said Lappi.
“For sure it was a tough day. The morning was more simple but the afternoon was more tricky, especially the long [stage] with the conditions we faced. In the morning we lost a bit of ground to Seb on the long one but in the afternoon we managed to get everything back and one tenth more.”
Despite a handbrake issue and a stall, Thierry Neuville holds third overnight to make it a Hyundai one-three, 18.6s behind Lappi.
Rovanpera, running first on the road as the championship leader, started the final stage of the day 54.9s adrift in seventh. But the rain was a blessing for the world champion, who went fastest to climb from seventh to fourth.
Takamoto Katsuta moved into third after winning SS3 but hitting a rock when he ran wide on a left-hander cost him 20s and damaged his Toyota Yaris. He’s fifth after seven stages followed by team-mate Elfyn Evans, who was delayed by a front-right puncture towards the end of the second Monte Lerno run.
Ott Tanak is a distant seventh thanks to his Ford Puma’s water pump faltering, while Dani Sordo languishes in 12th overall after he rolled his Hyundai on stage four and dropped more than three minutes.
Pierre-Louis Loubet, Tanak’s M-Sport team-mate, was third at one stage but a three-minute time penalty, handed out when he couldn’t engage any gears and get moving prior to the start of SS5, wrecked his hopes of a strong finish. An off into a ditch, the result of a reported mechanical failure, compounded his misery.
Meanwhile, Sami Pajari, in eighth overall, leads Adrien Fourmaux by 6.3s in WRC2.
Based southwest of Olbia, Saturday’s second leg features four repeated stages over 133.62 competitive kilometres. Covering 16.28 kilometres, Coiluna-Loelle kicks off proceedings from 08:05 ahead of Su Filigosu, Erula – Tula and Tempio Pausania.
