SS12: Evans quickest, Tänak still confortable

After a return to service at Exponor, Saturday morning’s three gravel stages were repeated during the afternoon. 

Hyundai management opted to withdraw Neuville from the afternoon’s action to give team technicians more time to ensure that the i20 Coupé was fully functional before Sunday’s Wolf Power Stage and its subsequent trip to the next event in Sardinia. 

Therefore, the M-Sport Fords of Fourmaux and Greensmith were again given road-sweeping duties in Vieira do Minho. Greensmith shaved seven seconds off his morning’s pass to set the target of 12min 46.6sec in his quest for a stage win on soft compound tyres. But Rovanperä moved 4.2 seconds further away from the Briton and Ogier then beat the Finn by 0.8 seconds and moved in front of Katsuta again and into fourth overall. 

Sordo was unable to make in-roads into Evans’s hold on second and the Spaniard ceded another 4.3 seconds to the Toyota driver. The Welshman actually beat Tänak as well to claim his first quickest time of the weekend and reduce the Estonian’s overall lead to 18.6 seconds. “The stages are a bit rough,” said Ott. “This will keep us awake. It was a clean run. That is all what we need at the moment.”

Suninen fractionally got the better of Finnish rival Lappi in WRC2 and reduced the latter’s lead to 13.9 seconds, although Solberg set the fastest time in the category and moved ahead of Gryazin and into third place.