The championship leader was sitting third overall behind Evans and Ogier after the morning loop of stages, before tyre dramas struck his teammates in the afternoon.
Despite opening the road, Rovanpera won the final stage of the day to claim his third stage win of the event to move into a 22.4s lead over Evans.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak managed to reach service in third spot, 25.3s adrift, despite losing 36.4s to a snapped gear lever in the morning, such was the attrition of the tough gravel event.
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta completed the day’s six stages in fourth ahead of Thierry Neuville, while Ogier dropped 2mins 21.6s to change a punctured left-rear, leaving the eight-time world champion in sixth overall.
Hyundai’s Oliver Solberg will start Saturday seventh overall, while Gus Greensmith was the only M-Sport team Ford Puma running in 12th after losing 13 minutes to a right rear puncture in the morning.
A disastrous day for M-Sport was compounded by Sebastien Loeb, Craig Breen and Adrien Fourmaux all suffering mechanical retirements. Loeb exited the rally in the morning after running out of EV power on a road section after losing internal combustion engine to a small fire.
Sebastien Loeb, Isabelle Galmiche, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1
Photo by: Tomasz Kaliński
The afternoon began with a lead change as the left-rear on Evans’ GR Yaris began to deflate seven kilometres from the stage end, costing the Welshman 18.7s and the rally lead.
Ogier won stage by 4.3s from Katsuta to move into an 8.2s lead over his Japanese teammate.
Rovanpera was third-fastest ahead of the recovering Tanak and Neuville, who lost time to gear shift problem and power loss in the morning respectively. Neuville was continuing to battle the drivability of his car during the afternoon.
Stage 5 did present drama as seventh-placed Fourmaux suffered a transmission issue putting him out of the day.
The following test saw Ogier extend his rally lead after winning Stage 6 by 0.4s from Katsuta, who continued to build on a strong display in the morning loop.
Rovanpera resumed his rapid pace to leapfrog Evans to third overall as Toyota extended its monopoly of the top four positions.
The day had one final twist courtesy of the second pass through the notorious 31.25km Kedong test, featuring deep sand that had hampered crews in the morning.
Despite teams questioning if it should go ahead given the difficulty to navigate through the sand, a decision was taken to run…
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