After Saturday, Rovanperä leads the rally by more than a two-minute margin over his teammate Takamoto Katsuta. Adrien Fourmaux of M-Sport Ford is in third place, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans following in fourth.
The first Hyundai on the leaderboard is Thierry Neuville, currently fifth. The Belgian has even garnered some sympathy as luck has not been on his side at all.
“None of our cars were spared from some sort of issue today,” lamented Cyril Abiteboul, Hyundai’s team principal.
Indeed, none did. Esapekka Lappi and Ott Tänak had already retired on Friday and both had their share of troubles on Saturday too. However, the problems that Neuville faced took the entire team by surprise.
Neuville was in a solid second place after the morning loop on Saturday, but in the afternoon, his car’s fuel system failed. This caused the Belgian to lose a significant amount of time, dropping him to fifth place.
“Thierry’s issue in the afternoon is something we haven’t really seen before,” Abiteboul expressed his astonishment.
“We need to have a look at the data and the fuel tank to understand what is going on. It is very tough as he was in a good position,” Abiteboul explained.
Rovanperä has been the king of Kenya so far, but the Finn is only contesting half the season this year. Therefore, Hyundai’s benchmark is Elfyn Evans, who is competing the entire season and battling for the world championship.
“While it is frustrating, we are only losing two points to Elfyn Evans tonight, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow, as the target remains to protect his lead in the championship,” Abiteboul outlined.
