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Kalle Rovanpera underlined his credentials for a second straight world title as Thierry Neuville produced one of his best displays on high-speed gravel stages, the two separated by 3.0s following a fast-paced Friday in Estonia.
Neuville moved into the lead on the day’s opening test, held top spot through stages three and four, and reached the midday service halt 6.8s in front of Rovanpera, the Rally Estonia winner for the last two seasons.
But when the morning trio of stages were repeated in the afternoon, Rovanpera benefited from being less hamstrung by opening the road – although he was quick to point out the lines created by the national championship rally competitors were far from his liking – to post back-to-back stage wins.
The second of those came on stage six, which the Finn completed in the lead of the rally by 2.3s.
However, with Rovanpera struggling through a notably rutted stage seven, Neuville was able to trim his rival’s lead by 0.1s, only for Rovanpera to hit back on the day’s closing test.
That was despite the Toyota-driving world champion suffering his “only moment of the day” when he ran wide on a high-speed right-hander 3.2 kilometres from the stage start.
Rovanpera was back in control in an instant and actually extended his advantage to 3.0s at the completion of Friday’s action.
“It was a really big challenge this morning opening the road, as it was much looser than I was expecting,” the 22-year-old said. “It seems the roads had been drying quite a bit since the recce.
I am a bit disappointed that I lost a bit of time going wide in one corner [on SS8] but it was my only moment of the day. I tried to push a bit but in the first pass the conditions were not so easy.”
Neuville said: “We expected Kalle to be very fast this afternoon. I kept trying but in some sections I was losing a little bit here and there. We may have lost the [lead], but we are only three seconds behind.
“Compared to last year, my feeling in the car is much better and I was quite confident, as well as having a lot of fun out there. Tomorrow will be tough, Kalle has the better road position if there is no rain, so let’s see what we can do.”
Esapekka Lappi recovered from a slow start due to a loss of hybrid power following a heavy landing on SS2 to overtake Elfyn Evans for third on stage seven. The Finn is 9.2s behind his Hyundai team-mate Neuville and 1.9s ahead of Evans as 14.1s cover the top four.
Teemu Suninen, who is back in the WRC’s top category with Hyundai, is fifth after a day of high-speed learning. “We have shown good pace and I loved every single stage,” the Finn said afterwards.
Pierre-Louis Loubet is sixth with M-Sport team-mate Ott Tanak battling back to P11 following his five-minute penalty for an engine change after Thursday morning’s shakedown. It’s been a case of what might have been for the Estonian, who is 4m47.0s behind Rovanpera having claimed six stage wins out of a possible eight.
Saturday’s nine-stage route begins with the 10.27-kilometre Maekula test from 08:09 local time.
