Thierry Neuville grabbed the lead in the Rally of Central Europe on Thursday as Kalle Rovanpera struggled but strengthened his title hopes as his closest challenger, Elfyn Evans, had a worse day.
The 23-year-old Finn will retain his WRC crown if he matches or betters his Toyota teammate and friend Evans’ score in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Estonian Ott Tanak, in his penultimate race for Ford, won the morning stage on the Velka Chuchle racecourse in Prague with Frenchman Sebastien Ogier second in a Toyota and Belgian Neuville third for Hyundai.
Reigning champion Rovanpera was 11th almost four seconds back and one hundredth of a second behind Welshman Evans.
“It was not the best start,” said the Finn who started first as championship leader and said he got caught out when start times were changed.
“We didn’t have much time to get ready for the stage,” he said, adding that he had enjoyed himself.
“I have a racehorse myself with my friends, and I have seen her running on the track but I have never driven on one myself! It was fun.”
Neuville won the afternoon stage over an 8.92km circuit at Klatovy, 125km southwest of Prague.
He finished 2.2sec ahead of Tanak to take the overall lead by 1.2sec.
Despite the emphatic stage win, the Belgian was no happy.
“It was not the greatest stage,” he said.
Rovanpera was third to climb to fourth overall.
“It was not so wet any more,” said Rovanpera as he crossed the line. “We expected a bit of rain here, so let’s hope it’s not drying up for the others much more. As long we are on an okay pace with Elfyn, that’s fine for me.”
Welshman Evans was ninth in the stage and ended the day eighth overall, 4.8sec behind Rovanpera.
“I had a small overshoot at one of the junctions, just locked up under braking” said Evans. “It’s a shame.”