Rovanpera scores 200th career stage win, Ogier survives scare

Kalle Rovanpera recorded his 200th World Rally Championship stage win on his way to extending his lead at Rally Latvia on Saturday morning.

The two-time world champion won three of the four morning gravel tests to increase his advantage to 34.8s.

That lead was over Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier, who managed to pip local star Martins Sesks to second across the loop.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak charged from sixth overnight to fourth [+45.0s] ahead of M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux [+1m06.3s] and Toyota’s Elfyn Evans [+1m14.3s]. 

Takamoto Katsuta started the day in fourth but a mistake on stage 12 demoted the Japanese to seventh [+1m35.5ss] in front of Hyundai’s championship leader Thierry Neuville [+2m14.4s], Esapekka Lappi [+2m43.7s] and Gregoire Munster [+2m51.8s].

Road cleaning was arguably an even bigger effect on Saturday with only one of the day’s eight stages repeated.

This was evident in the morning’s first 18.87km test Pilskalns, as times tumbled with more or less every pass.

Rally leader Rovanpera was granted the best road position which he duly made the most of, while adding further gloss. The Finn posted a blistering time despite carrying the extra weight of two spare wheels unlike his rally rivals Sesks and Ogier.  

Rovanpera chalked up his sixth stage win from nine tests by 5.4s from Ogier.

Ogier felt he could have used the lines from his rivals more but his effort did close the gap to second-placed Sesks to 3.2s. Sesks continued to impress matching the fourth-fastest time set by Katsuta.

“I was trying to be really clean but in some places, I was still a bit cautious,” said Sesks. “We will just drive we are not that experienced to fight with guys like [Ogier and Rovanpera].”

Tanak claimed his i20 N was much more “positive” which was reflected in the stage times as the Estonian climbed ahead of Fourmaux into fifth overall by 6.3s, after posting the third fastest stage time, just a tenth slower than Ogier.

The other change of position came further down the order as Neuville benefitted from team orders on Friday night that placed team-mate Lappi ahead of him on the road order.

Neuville took advantage of slightly cleaner road conditions to jump into eighth ahead of M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster. The gap to seventh-placed Evans was 38.8s.

“I was too careful, there was much more grip than I expected due to one car…