Central Europe Rally – Ogier finishes the day in the lead by a hair's breadth ahead of Rovanperä

At Toyota, smiles will be legion this Friday evening. The Japanese manufacturer is heading towards a clear double in Rally from Central Europe, and what a double! Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier, ten world titles between them, have been engaged in a close battle for victory since the start of the Rally. Despite Rovanperä's scratch wins, Ogier used his masterful consistency to never lose the lead, even when his rival came back to within 0.3s after SS7.

Finally, it was on the last special stage that the Gapençais regained a very slight air gap by gaining three additional tenths on the future "retiree" of the WRC. Rovanperä, third on SS8, will spend the night as Ogier's runner-up with the prospect of making up ground on Saturday's stages. This will not be the only challenge of the day, as the third step of the podium is also the subject of a knife-edge duel between Ott Tänak (Hyundai) and Elfyn Evans (Toyota).

Tänak – Evans duel for third place

While the Estonian had made the difference in the first half of the day, his Toyota counterpart came back like a rocket at nightfall, claiming the final stage win of the day on SS8. Having come back to within 30 seconds of the leaders, the Welshman virtually completed an all-Toyota podium. However, the day was much less positive for Hyundai, whose reigning champion, Thierry Neuville, was undermined by punctures and a mistake in the morning. Frustrated, the Belgian, 8th overall, is now 2 minutes behind the leader.

“During one of the braking points, there was a lot more dust, so we overtook a little, but not much. analyzed the Belgian hot off the press, at the finish of SS8. I have completely changed the settings, and it was interesting. I changed a lot… from a very soft setting to a very stiff one. I tried to find what works. I'm struggling, I can't seem to find the confidence. We'll try something else tomorrow. It's not fun and it's not what I expected."

If Ott Tänak was ejected from the podium, Adrien fourmaux also lost a lot of ground on the most technical stages. The Northerner, however, managed the threat of Sami Pajari for 6th place overall, relegating the Finn to almost ten seconds at the end of the rally.

In Rally2, Oliver Solberg once again secured a stage win and extended his lead to 22.1 seconds. Frenchman Léo Rossel is currently in third place overall, almost a minute behind.

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WRC – Central European Rally
The classification of SS8

The general classification after SS8