Croatia: Gryazin resists Rossel and the rain

For this 2^e stage, a loop of 4 special stages had to be run twice, once on Saturday morning and then once during the afternoon. This represented a little over 108 km timed and the main question concerned the arrival of rain.

Not really comfortable at the wheel of his C3 Rally2 when it is equipped with a mixture of rubber, Yohan Rossel still managed to score three scratches which allowed him to erase part of his slate on Nikolay Gryazin. He still had 21'' to go, when a puncture in SS12 caused him to lose the benefit of his beautiful morning. The Bulgarian suddenly found himself with a lead of almost a minute (59''9) to face the end of the day.

With a better choice of tires, Yohan Rossel began the afternoon with a bang, clearing 20''8 and then another 14''4 in quick succession. He brought his deficit back to 24 seconds, but lost twice in the two remaining times. At the end of this 7^e stage, the Frenchman has 39''5 to go back if he wants to add a 3^e success in Croatia, but it is certain that Gryazin will not hear it that way.

Behind the two Citroëns, Pepe Lopez was consistent to maintain his 3^e place. The Spaniard who seems to appreciate the roads of the Zagreb region more and more will not be able to take his foot off on Sunday. Nicolas Ciamin has in fact returned to just 10”8. “ Our day was positive, indicated the 26-year-old pilot. However, even when I do a very good stage, I am still a little behind the fastest. Comparing our times with those of Emil Lindholm, who has an identical car, we see that we cannot do much better. » Nicolas will try on Sunday to dislodge Lopez from the podium in order to record something other than a new 4^e place after Monte-Carlo and at the Safari.

For the last stage, the organizers have selected 4 sections representing 54,78 km timed.

WRC2 ranking at the end of the 2nd stage of the rally from Croatia