Rally Chile: Ogier distanced, Evans leader after a hectic morning

• There was some trouble in these first three special stages of the Rally from Chile. In fact, hostilities began with an ES1 cancelled after only three passes, those of Thierry Neuville, Ott Tänak et Sébastien Ogier. The presence of spectators too close to the road forced the race management to cancel the special for safety reasons. While the Frenchman (9'59"1) and the Estonian (10'08"2) kept their time, the rest of the competitors were credited with the Belgian's time (10'09"6). A review is however planned after SS4.
• The action was then able to resume with SS2 and it was the Toyota who took matters into their own hands. Leading a quadruple ahead of Kalle Rovanperä, Sami Pajari and Sébastien Ogier, Elfyn Evans took his first stage win of the weekend to move up to second overall. He then had no choice but to take the lead in Rally Chile. It fell into his hands when Sébastien Ogier crashed on SS3, the last before midday service.
• Coming out too wide of a right-hand bend, the eight-time world champion hit the embankment and was forced to stop a few metres further on. While changing his left rear tyre after a puncture, the Gapençais lost more than 1'40 in the process and, above all, a lot of ground. Because when it was time to regain the service, he was 1'41“8 behind his teammate while Thierry Neuville, who swept the road, was only 13“8 behind. A hard blow for the Toyota driver who saw his last hopes of the title take a big hit.

• Thus, Elfyn Evans takes a Toyota hat-trick at the break with 2“2 and 6“6 ahead of Kalle Rovanperä and Sami Pajari. A surprising Grégoire Munster is in 4th place at 6“9 from the leader while Ott Tänak completes the Top 5 at 7“3. Thierry Neuville is 7th.

Rally1 standings after SS3

• In WRC2, despite all the surprise he was able to display at the stop points, Nikolay Gryazin dominates his opponents. With his scratch times during SS2 and SS3, the Russian has gained an 8-second cushion over Gus Greensmith and 11 seconds over Oliver Solberg who could be crowned this weekend. On the French side, Yohan Rossel is lying in wait in 4th place. Still in the running for the title, he is 14 seconds behind Gryazin.

Rally Chile is scheduled to resume at 19:46 p.m. with SS4

The complete classification of the Rally of Chile

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