Rovanpera overhauls Evans as thick fog turns rally on its head

Kalle Rovanpera moved ahead of Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans to lead Rally Chile as thick fog turned the fight for the World Rally Championship victory on its head.

The reigning world champion started Saturday in third but emerged through treacherous weather and incredibly poor visibility to head overnight leader Evans by 15.1 seconds going into Sunday’s final four stages.

Rovanpera took the provisional 18 points for topping Saturday’s classification as Evans scooped up 15 points.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak’s tyre gamble didn’t pay off as he dropped to third, 33.6s adrift (13 points) while championship leader Thierry Neuville hauled himself into the fight in fourth [+43.7s, 10 points].

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux ended the day in fifth [+1m23.0s] ahead of Toyota young gun Sami Pajari [+1m49.5s] and the second full-time M-Sport entry driven by Gregoire Munster [+1m50.6s], with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi a distant eighth [+5m14.6s].

Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier retired from ninth position after hitting a rock in the morning’s stage eight, while M-Sport’s Martins Sesks completed the six stages after rejoining the rally following a double puncture on Friday.

Chile’s abrasive stages coupled with unpredictable weather made tyre choice incredibly difficult to call for the crews.

Rally leader Evans, Rovanpera, Neuville and Lappi opted for four hards and two softs in the hope rain might arrive while Tanak, Munster, Fourmaux and Sesks plumped for six hards.

Stage 10 (Pelun, 15.65km), the first of the afternoon loop, was devoid of any rain and was much drier than the first pass but there were patches of fog.

Evans triumphed in the first pass of the mountainous stage and repeated the feat in the afternoon. The rally leader was 2.3s faster than Rovanpera to extend his advantage over his team-mate to 13.6s.

Rovanpera was, however, a little concerned over his tyre choice, stating: “It is really hard to tell how fast to go on the downhill as you don’t want to kill the tyres. We have two hard tyres with us again so we hope that works for us.”

Tanak was third fastest, 3.3s adrift, 1.5s quicker than Neuville. There was a position change behind as Fourmaux climbed ahead of his team-mate Munster into sixth overall.

The difficulty level went up another notch in stage 11 (Lota, 25.64km) as thick fog…