Andreas Mikkelsen was the first major retirement from the upper reaches of the leader board. The WRC2-leading Norwegian’s Škoda Fabia evo had been misfiring badly on Friday evening and Toksport took the decision to retire the car, handing the WRC2 lead to Teemu Suninen.
Both Loeb and Ogier restarted and they were given road-sweeping duties through the 21.57km of Vieira do Minho in the Cabreira mountains. Loeb complained of a lack of grip with a not-so-ideal tyre choice, as Ogier beat the nine-time champion by 15.8 seconds and admitted he was using the day as a test session for Toyota.
Loubet survived a spin and Greensmith slipped from fifth to eighth after driving on a flat tyre. Rovanperä and Evans were the class of the field and the stage win went to the Welshman, who duly extended his lead over the Finn to 14.9 seconds.
Four-minute intervals for the Rally1 cars.
Car 69. ROVANPERÄ/HALTTUNEN
Stunning time of 13min 39.2sec for the Finn. “It seems to be close. I just trying to start the morning well. It was lot more slippy than I was expecting. I was a bit wide here and there.”
Car 11. NEUVILLE/WYDAEGHE
“It felt good. I have a hard tyre on the car which is not optimal. I got it through. I had a good stage.”
Car 42. BREEN/NAGLE
“I really struggled with the front of the car. Two hards on the front. I couldn’t get the rhythm at all.”
Car 19. LOEB/GALMICHE
Hard tyres on the front and softs on the back. “Very difficult. Much more humid than I expected and tyre choice is not what I expected. No grip at all. Really tricky.”
Car 8. TÄNAK/JÄRVEOJA
“We just see how it works. We are early on the road and soft (six soft tyres) seemed to be an okay choice.”
Car 18. KATSUTA/JOHNSTON
“I was just trying to do a very clean run. The engineer did a great job. I am happy.”
Car 44. GREENSMITH/ANDERSSON
Drove to the finish on a rear puncture and slipped down the leader board from fifth to eighth. “Towards the beginning…(flat tyre)”
Car 1. OGIER/VEILLAS
15.8 seconds faster than Loeb from second on the road. “So far so good with the tyre choice. We’ll see at the end of the loop. We try to drive otherwise it is a bit annoying having no target. We will try and use this day as a test.”
Car 33. EVANS/MARTIN
“It was pretty okay. It is a fine balance between pushing too much and not enough.”
Car 16. FOURMAUX/CORIA
“The conditions are really nice. It is nice to drive and I was enjoying in the stage. It’s nice having 18 world titles in front of me! I see the lines and need to use those on the next one!”
Car 7. LOUBET/LANDAIS
“We did a spin and the feeling was not good.”
Car 6. SORDO/CARRERA
Maintained third overall. “I have full soft tyres for this stage. A little bit moving, not a lot of grip. I tried to do my best. I am quite happy with my car.”
Car 20. MIKKELSEN/ERIKSEN
Toksport took the decision on Friday evening to retire the car. Mikkelsen’s Škoda Fabia evo had a misfire and it was not possible to continue. “We tried what we could, but the team said it’s better to retire the car because there’s no way they would have time to fix it in a normal service. It’s a shame because we were driving sensibly and we had built up a big gap.”