Rovanperä in the lead but Tänak gets dangerously close in Croatia

Le Rally of Croatia 2022 has many traps in store for its competitors. While we thought the rain had definitely disappeared at the start of the second stage on Saturday April 23, a violent downpour reshuffled the cards in SS11.

On a road with almost zero visibility (10 meters at most), the leader of the event Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota) has practically lost all of his lead accumulated during the previous 10 special stages.

The 21-year-old Finn was slowed down by a puncture to his front left wheel in the first turns. Its margin of more than a minute on Ott Tänak (Hyundai) a été effacé à seulement 18″ avant de perdre encore une grappe de secondes dernière spéciale de la boucle, disputée à nouveau sur une route sèche.

The leader in the general classification had nevertheless made a profitable tire choice by running with four grooved tires… just like Ott Tänak. The two men left the other competitors who wanted to play the cautious card (two slick tires and two rain tires).

Neuville penalized, Solberg injured

Hyundai Motorsport can only count on Ott Tänak to threaten Kalle Rovanperä following the setbacks of Thierry Neuville and Oliver Solberg. The first named was found guilty of several speeding offenses on Friday on a connecting route, following an alternator problem.

The commissioners did not appreciate his shaky defense (no danger because traffic was non-existent at that time on the open road) and imposed a substantial penalty of 1 minute overall, accompanied by a fine and two days of work of general interest with the FIA.

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As for the son of 2003 world rally champion Petter Solberg, a driving error sent him into the background on the first morning special. The fire started in the exhaust pipe of the Hyundai i20 hybrid before co-driver Eliott Edmondson activated the fire extinguisher. The special stage was canceled to allow firefighters to contain the fire which threatened to spread into the Croatian forest.

Rossel masters WRC2

The outgoing WRC3 champion, Yohan Rossel (Citroën), increased his margin over the Russian Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda) to around forty seconds. The Frenchman from the PH Sport team can control his opponent's comeback, especially since he is under threat from the Habs Éric Camilli (Citroën, +1'07''1).

General classification after SS12: