Toyota driver Evans managed to take time out his Hyundai rival Neuville on two of the morning’s three stages to move into a 6.5s lead after Saturday morning’s loop.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak climbed to third, 26.9s adrift of the lead, after newly crowned world champion Rovanpera picked up a right front puncture following a run in with a rock face.
As a result of Rovanpera’s problems, local favourite Takamoto Katsuta inherited fourth ahead of M-Sport’s Gus Greensmith, with eight-time world champion Sebastian Ogier sixth, while Rovanpera dropped outside of the top 10.
The morning loop began with a blistering run from leader Evans in the day’s first stage that resulted in the Welshman almost doubling his overall advantage over Neuville.
Evans emerged through the narrow and twisty Nukata Forest (20.56km) test, 2.9s faster than Neuville, who reported that he had too much information in his pacenotes.
“I tried. I had quite an okay stage but in the very narrow sections I have too much information in my pace notes and it was very difficult to keep concentrated. I did what I could,” said Neuville.
The battle for the victory encountered another twist during the stage as Rovanpera, sitting third, hit trouble. The Finn understeered at a tight hander and slid into a rock face which caused a puncture to the front right.
Rovanpera dropped 2m36.0s in the stage after changing the wheel, demoting him from third to sixth overall.
He wasn’t the only driver to suffer a puncture as Breen, driving the repaired M-Sport Ford Puma after yesterday’s crash, picked up a right rear failure towards the end of the stage.
Neuville issued a response to Evans in the next test taking 1.2s out of the rally leader after revealing his pass was smoothest of the rally so far. Evans did however admit that it wasn’t the cleanest of stages.
“I didn’t have the best run in here. The start was especially quite bad but the end was okay,” said Evans.
It was team-mate Ogier who claimed the stage win after pipping Neuville by 0.3s. The effort was enough to leapfrog Rovanpera into sixth overall as the world champion suffered another blow.
Rovanpera knocked his front right wheel during his pass, causing minor damage to it in the process. Having already used his spare wheel in the previous stage, he was forced to persevere with the damage.
“There was something on a right-hand corner where we got a bit close but it was not a big hit,” said Rovanpera. “I have no…
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