Finn wins seven out of eight stages on penultimate day to build massive lead.
Kalle Rovanperä’s rivals were left trailing in his dust after the Finn extended his Tet Rally Latvia lead with a sublime second-leg drive on Saturday.
The 23-year-old, who made his competition debut in the Baltic nation more than 10 years ago, distanced the chasing pack through eight super-fast gravel tests near Liepāja to grow his advantage from 15.7sec to 42.5sec with just one day remaining of this eighth round.
It was a milestone morning for Rovanperä as he notched up the 200th stage win of his WRC career on the sun-kissed Snēpele test. His advantage climbed to 34.8sec by mid-leg service and that dominance continued into the afternoon, with the Finn topping the timesheets on all but one occasion. His Toyota team-mate Sébastien Ogier made it a GR Yaris 1-2 with local ace Mārtiņš Sesks a close third.
Ogier began the day 5.9sec behind Sesks but surpassed the M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 youngster in the final stage of the morning. Luck was on the Frenchman’s side when he ran wide into a ditch on SS11, ploughing through the undergrowth before popping back onto the road unscathed.
Sesks, who ended the day just 4.7sec further back, sits on the cusp of a sensational podium on only his second outing at rallying’s highest level. The two drivers ahead of him, plus Ott Tänak behind, are all world title winners.
Tänak climbed from sixth to fourth in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1, winning SS11 and closing to within 6.3sec of Sesks. However, a transmission fault following a jump in the day-ending Liepāja City Stage cost him around 15sec and he reached the overnight halt 20.8sec in arrears.
The Estonian was successful in collecting more Saturday classification points than fellow title challengers Elfyn Evans and Thierry Neuville, who were sixth and eighth respectively, but he must finish the rally on Sunday in order to bank them.
Fifth went the way of Puma star Adrien Fourmaux, who ended 8.4sec down on Tänak but with 17.9sec in hand over Toyota man Evans. Takamoto Katsuta fell to seventh, having run as high as fourth before an impact broke his GR Yaris car’s power steering on SS11.
Championship leader Neuville, still struggling with low traction running second on the road, placed eighth in his Hyundai while Esapekka Lappi and Grégoire Munster completed the top 10.
Sunday’s deciding leg boasts two stages, each used twice, totalling 64.08km. Up first is Krogzemji at 08:55 local time.
Leading positions after Saturday:
1. K Rovanperä / J Halttunen FIN Toyota GR Yaris 1h 58m 55.6s
2. S Ogier / V Landais FRA Toyota GR Yaris +42.5s
3. M Sesks / R Francis LVA Ford Puma +47.2s
4. O Tänak / M Järveoja EST Hyundai i20 N +1m 8.0s
5. A Fourmaux / A Coria FRA Ford Puma +1m 16.4s
6. E Evans / S Martin GBR Toyota GR Yaris +1m 34.3s
