Following a tricky start to the rally for everybody on Friday, Saturday was much more straightforward, with all the scheduled stages completed. Both TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT crews took advantage of the longest day of competitive action to end up separated by just 0.3 seconds in sixth and seventh places. The team’s engineers resolved the overheating issues encountered yesterday, allowing the drivers to push harder, although ambient conditions were also cooler today. As a result, Jari-Matti Latvala and Juho Hänninen enjoyed perfect reliability and are in a position to both score driver points.
Unusually, some rain and damp sections were forecast for Saturday, which meant that Jari-Matti chose soft tyres. But the rain never came until the evening, which meant that he had to prioritise looking after his tyres rather than extracting maximum performance. No longer first on the road, he benefitted from cleaner surfaces to end the day sixth overall, despite a puncture on SS11 after sliding wide. Juho was still affected by the flu he has suffered from throughout the rally. Despite not feeling very well, he hung on bravely to end the day seventh, with no mechanical issues on his Yaris WRC.
End of day three (Saturday):
1 Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle (Citroen C3 WRC) 2h47m33.3s 2 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Ford Fiesta WRC) +30.9s 3 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +1m10.5s 4 Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja (Ford Fiesta WRC) +2m12.6s 5 Hayden Paddon/John Kennard (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +3m25.5s 6 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miika Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +4m.32.6s 7 Juho Hänninen/Kaj Lindström (Toyota Yaris WRC) +4m32.9s 8 Dani Sordo/Marc Marti (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +5m16.1s 9 Elfyn Evans/Daniel Barritt (Ford Fiesta WRC) +8m41.9s 10 Pontus Tidemand/Jonas Andersson (Skoda Fabia R5) +9m26.4s
Press release Toyota Gazoo Racing
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