Neuville and Ogier manage (their boredom), Tanak rushes to victory

The Toyota were designated as grandissimes favorites of the Rally Finland which will end this Sunday after four recent special stage (45 km). Normal: The Yaris WRC are prepared a few kilometers from the center of the rally, in the farm of Tommi Makinen who took charge of the program of the Japanese manufacturer. And the Japanese cars are regularly surveying Finnish roads for testing. Saturday night, at the end of the second leg of the Finnish event, only Mads Ostberg (Citroen) prevented Toyota from occupying the three steps of the provisional podium. Author of five fastest times (on the 8 specials of the day), Ott Tanak took the opportunity to take an almost final option on the victory which should a little boost the championship level. The Estonian was more than half a minute ahead of Ostberg. And if Jari-Matti Latvala looked good in the 3rd place, and even returned to the Norwegian (5.4 seconds), he also kept an eye on the return of his compatriot Esapekka Lappi (36.2 seconds) , author of a very good recovery which allowed him to pbad from the 8th to the 4th place on the day. Yes, the Toyota are at home in Finland!

Neuville resigned
                    
                

In any case, the drivers of the Yaris WRC seemed to have fun driving their cars, which was not the case at all for Sébastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville, engaged in their duel at (good) distance to the title. Second on the road behind his team-mate Mikkelsen (Al-Qbadimi, who was leaving in front of the road on the first special stage), our compatriot had no chance to return to one or the other driver who preceded him. He thus badured the blow.

"
                     I had nothing to gain today
                    Neuville concluded, struggling to mask his resignation and a very legitimate disappointment. "
                     So I used to drive as cleanly as possible. I did not take any chances, I did the job. The situation is not pleasant, but I accept it. And then, the important thing for me is that Egier takes no more points than in the current situation …
                    

Ogier: "In practice rather than race"
                    
                

Ranked seventh place provisional, with the very likely hope to see his team ask his teammate Suninen let him pbad tomorrow, Sebastien Ogier did not show a much more happy, he who had successively invoked confidence a nothing blunted, many changes settings that were not entirely satisfactory, and finally aerodynamic changes (at the rear of his Ford Fiesta including) unconvincing, to justify this lack of performance.

"
                     It seems to me that this second day of racing has turned into a giant test session
                    Sighed the five-time world champion. "
                     I spent my day tweaking the settings to try to finally have a better feeling. But the times show that the result has not been fully achieved. We knew we had taken a risk by starting with a new aero kit that we had only tested on one day. The course of this rally tends to show that it was indeed too risky, even if it is primarily to the problem of sweeping that we must mainly attribute our lack of performance this weekend.