WRC Chile: Rovanpera fights through thick fog to extend lead

Toyota moved a step closer to a 1-2 as crews survived difficult weather conditions in Sunday's opening leg

Kalle Rovanpera increased his Rally Chile lead over Toyota World Rally Championship team-mate Elfyn Evans after emerging from treacherous fog that severely reduced visibility.

The reigning world champion extended his margin to 20.3s over Evans with two stages of the final gravel rally of the season remaining.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak held third [+40.1s] ahead of championship leader Thierry Neuville [+57.5s], while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux [+1m38.8s] and Toyota’s Sami Pajari [+2m25.4s] completed the top six. Gregoire Munster and Esapekka Lappi rounded out the Rally1 field that had completed the 14 stages.

Following his Saturday retirement that caused him to concede his world championship chances, retuning Toyota driver Sebastien Ogier led the Super Sunday standings from Rovanpera, Evans, Tanak, Lappi, Neuville and Fourmaux.

The weather and subsequent road conditions dominated the headlines on Sunday morning as crews faced a wet and muddy road surface, along with reduced visibility due to fog in stage 13 (Laraquete 18.62km). The stages were reminiscent of roads found at Wales Rally GB, last present on the WRC calendar in 2019.

While the fog wasn’t as thick compared to Saturday afternoon’s conditions, the low cloud meant visibility deteriorated in step with grip levels as each car passed.

Starting first on the road, Ogier actually benefitted from his advanced position. The Frenchman made the most of that and his experience in the conditions to post a stunning effort to win the stage and take an early lead in the Super Sunday classification.

Rally leader Rovanpera came the closest to Ogier’s benchmark, 5.6s adrift, while Evans underestimated the speed levels in places and dropped 9.8s to his eight-time world champion Toyota team-mate.

“It was quite tricky, for sure the road is getting slower by each car, there is more mud coming out everywhere,” said Rovanpera, who extended his rally lead over Evans to 19.3s. “I think the guys in front didn’t have so much fog and it is coming out for us.”

Lappi started third on the road and was the fastest of the Hyundais, ahead of team-mates Tanak and a cautious Neuville, as Fourmaux led the M-Sport charge. Fourmaux’s team-mate Martins Sesks survived a half-spin, the Latvian rookie outlined the difficulty of the conditions.

Conditions significantly worsened by the time the field tackled stage 14 (Bio Bio, 8.78km), the dress rehearsal for the rally-ending Power Stage. Thick fog engulfed the short but tricky test, reducing visibility to around 20 metres.

Incredibly, despite the conditions only three tenths of a second separated the top three on the timing screens.

Ogier took the stage win by 0.2s from rally leader Rovanpera while Tanak was a tenth further back in third, but his effort did help leap ahead of Lappi to fourth in the Super Sunday classification.

“It’s not so fun, that’s the way it is,” said Ogier after increasing his Super Sunday lead over Rovanpera to 5.8s. “There are some sections where you barely see anything.”

Evans was fourth fastest on the test, 1.2s adrift, but the Welshman was faster than Neuville, who described the conditions as “on the limit”.

Fourmaux was five seconds slower than pace-setter Ogier, stating that he just tried to “keep the car on road as we don’t see anything”.

In WRC2, Yohan Rossel led the way after benefiting from having 40s taken off his overall time overnight.

The stewards deemed he was held up by a recovering Oliver Solberg following a puncture in Saturday’s stage 11.

Rossel felt the stage 14 conditions were dangerous but still completed the loop in ninth overall, with a 18.1s lead over Nikolay Gryazin. Gus Greensmith was third, ahead of Solberg.

A second pass through the stages will conclude Rally Chile this afternoon.