Dominant Rovanpera leads Ogier into final day

Kalle Rovanpera dominated Saturday’s stages to open up a commanding Rally Latvia lead over Toyota World Rally Championship team-mate Sebastien Ogier.

The reigning world champion set a rapid pace to claim six of the eight stages and transform an overnight 15.7s advantage to a 42.5s lead [18 provisional points] heading into Sunday’s final four stages.

M-Sport’s local star Martins Sesks started Saturday in second but narrowly lost a fight with eight-time world champion Ogier to end the day a highly commendable third [+47.2s – 13 points].

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak survived a strange run-in with a promotional arch to finish fourth [+1m08.0s], bagging 10 provisional championship points. Tanak fared the best of the title contenders as Toyota’s Elfyn Evans reached service in sixth [+1m34.3s – six points], while championship leader Thierry Neuville picked up three points in eighth [+2m33.9s].

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux completed the day in fifth with Takamoto Katsuta eighth, while Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster rounded out the top 10.

Saturday afternoon’s loop followed a similar narrative to the morning with Rovanpera setting a blistering pace at the front.

The Toyota driver set the benchmark time in Stage 13 [Podnieki 10.09km] to claim his ninth stage win of the rally. Rovanpera was 2.6s faster than nearest rival Ogier.

Ogier wasn’t happy with his morning loop and was eager to unlock more pace from his GR Yaris. While the Frenchman couldn’t beat his team-mate, he did pip Sesks by 0.2s to increase the gap to the M-Sport Rally1 rookie to 0.8s.

Sesks’ impressive pace offered the Latvian relative breathing space in the form of a 10.4s gap to fourth-placed Tanak.

Fourmaux headed into the stage with only an eight-second margin over Evans in the battle for fifth after losing time to the Welshman across the morning. A set-up change on his Puma at midday service provided more traction helping the Ford driver to a time 2.7s faster than Evans.

Fourmaux’s team-mate Munster was fortunate to survive a wild moment over a crest that ripped the front splitter and arch from his Puma.

Stage 14 provided one of the most bizarre moments of the WRC season when an inflatable arch was felled, which brought out the red flags.

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans ran wide at the right-hander before the arch,…