Hometown hero Sebastien Ogier leads the rally after two days of competition. His Toyota teammate Elfyn Evans is in second place, trailing the Frenchman by 12.6 seconds.
Ogier hit his stride on Friday afternoon, moving into the rally lead with increasingly confident driving.
“Yesterday, Ogier made a mistake, and that might have dented his confidence a little. This morning, he was still finding his rhythm, but once he regained his confidence, everything clicked,” Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala analysed.
“I can say outright that he’s really strong right now, and he’s got everything he needs to go for the win,” Latvala added confidently.
Meanwhile, Toyota’s Finnish star Kalle Rovanperä sits in fourth place, more than half a minute behind Ogier. Rovanperä appeared somewhat disappointed at the end of Friday, particularly lamenting his lacklustre pace on slick tyres.
Rovanperä couldn’t pinpoint the root cause of his issues, but Latvala shared his perspective on the matter.
“Kalle doesn’t currently have the routine to handle constantly changing grip levels. On one stage, where it was clearly muddy and slippery, he drove really well. But when the grip keeps changing, he doesn’t yet have the experience to manage that consistently. It makes things difficult, but his speed will come little by little.”
“And let’s not forget, this isn’t his favourite rally,” Latvala remarked.
Toyota’s rookie driver Sami Pajari is in seventh place after nine stages, with a gap of three and a half minutes to the leader.
For Pajari, gaining experience is the priority, but Latvala believes his pace should be slightly better.
“Sami is struggling to judge what constitutes a safe pace. He needs to drive safely, but right now, he’s being overly cautious.”
“That’s been the challenge – figuring out how much he can increase his speed. But I believe he’ll improve tomorrow,” Latvala predicted.
