Saturday was the longest day of the rally, featuring eight stages and 120.22 competitive kilometres. The route took crews north-east from Toyota City for a trio of tests to be repeated the other side of a mid-day tyre-fitting zone, before two passes of a new super special stage. Temperatures in excess of 30 degrees centigrade tested tyres, cars and crews alike.
Evans started the day with a lead of 15.7 seconds over team-mate Oliver Solberg. While Evans won the second stage of the morning loop, Solberg was fastest in the other two to reduce his overall deficit to 10.6s. However, Solberg would hit trouble in the first stage of the afternoon, sliding wide and damaging the rear-right suspension on his car, preventing him from going any further. The team is preparing his car to restart on the final day.
Taking another stage win during the afternoon, Evans extended his lead once more to 17.8s at the end of the day ahead of Sébastien Ogier, who had been quickest in the first stage of the afternoon.
Sami Pajari has moved up into third overall and scored three more stage wins in the afternoon, including both passes of the Fujioka super special. Takamoto Katsuta is fourth after a stronger second day on his home rally to gain two positions on the leaderboard.
In the WRC2 category, GR Yaris Rally2 driver Alejandro Cachón remains engaged in a close battle for victory, just 5.7s away from the lead in second place. TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto remains in a podium position in third after a strong day.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It has been another very good day at Rally Japan and an interesting one to follow. Elfyn has continued to do an excellent job leading the rally: he is so consistent at the moment and he can be really hard to beat when he’s like this. Oliver was finding some time this morning but then unfortunately this mistake came; he’s very fast and he wants to win, but he just needs to find more consistency and adapt his speed to the conditions, and we will support him and work with him to find this. Seb is now second and won’t be giving up, and it was great to see strong days from Sami and Taka as well, so the final day should also be an exciting one to watch.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Overall it’s been a good day for us. I can’t be perfectly happy with everything we did but that’s also part of the game here on this rally: the stages vary quite a bit and there’s always some ups and downs. Our team-mates have been going strong today so they have definitely kept us on our toes, but this is obviously a good position to be in at the end of the day. There’s still a lot of mileage to go and a big day ahead tomorrow, with some nice sections of stage and some tricky parts as well. I’m looking forward to it and we’ll just continue to give our best until the end.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“Today the feeling in the car was better and the pace was OK, but our speed was still not as good as I had wanted it to be. We kept fighting during the whole day and it’s been very close with Elfyn – just a few tenths here and there – but in the end we were not able to make up any of the time that we lost yesterday. I think we are now a little bit too far to fight for the win, but tomorrow will still be an important day. We will keep working together with the team to be better and we still have some ideas to try and find the little things we’ve been missing.”
Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It was going really well this morning, I felt fantastic in the car and I don’t think that I was pushing too crazy. In the first stage of the afternoon, we came to this place that was quite muddy and slippery in the cuts. I wasn’t expecting this and I just braked a little too late, hit a telegraph pole on the outside and damaged the suspension. It’s a big disappointment and I’m sorry to the team. It’s been tough on asphalt for me recently: the margins are very small at this level, and I just need to try to learn and understand that better in all the different conditions we face. For now I just hope to come back and take some points tomorrow.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“We had a much better day today. There were no big moments or issues, it was quite a smooth and normal day of driving. After yesterday, it was good to reset completely today and get up to fourth overall, and tomorrow will be an important opportunity to get some more points. Still I feel I have a bit more pace to try and find. I will also try to enjoy driving these roads with this car in front of the Japanese fans. There are so many people here supporting us from very early in the morning and I really want to do a good job for them.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“In the end I think it has been a really strong day for us. I still wasn’t 100 percent happy during the morning loop and our plan was to make it better for the afternoon, and that’s exactly what we were able to do. We took three stage wins and more importantly, the feeling and the confidence were there and the pace was top so I’m happy with that. For now we’re in a really good position. There’s one more day to go and it’s quite a big one, but we’ll just try to keep going the same way as this afternoon.”
End of day two (Saturday):
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h32m05.6s
2 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +17.8s
3 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +44.4s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m11.3s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m05.2s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m17.0s
7 Hayden Paddon/John Kennard (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3m41.8s
8 Jon Armstrong/Shane Byrne (Ford Puma Rally1) +4m33.7s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale) +7m17.7s
10 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m23.4s
26 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +50m00.00s
(Results as of 20:30 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What’s next?
The final day of the rally on Sunday consists of six stages totalling 74.06 competitive kilometres. The Nukata and Lake Mikawako stages to the south-east of Toyota City are followed by two passes of runs around a Kuragaike super special, and then repeated following final service at Toyota Stadium. The second pass of Lake Mikawako serves as the rally-ending Power Stage, offering up to five bonus points alongside five more for the Super Sunday classification.
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