For a long time, it looked like Hyundai’s Ott Tänak was on his way to dominating the rally, but on Saturday’s penultimate stage, technical issues intervened. Tänak suffered a power steering failure and dropped from the lead down to third place.
Ahead of Sunday’s special stages, Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier leads the rally by 27.6 seconds over teammate Kalle Rovanperä. Tänak trails Rovanperä by just 8.5 seconds.
Toyota team principal Juha Kankkunen first offered sympathy to the Estonian driver from a rival team.
“A tough day. Tänak just had bad luck. It’s a real shame, as he was having a fantastic rally. But this is rallying, and it’s not over yet. There are still 72 kilometres left tomorrow,” Kankkunen underlined to RalliyJournal.com
“There’s no service between the stages tomorrow either, so it will be a full-on challenge.”
Tänak’s misfortune was, of course, a big gain for Toyota. Kankkunen pondered whether the Estonian was pushing too hard on the stages.
“These things can happen, but I don’t believe there was anything major. At least from what I saw, there wasn’t. I must admit, though, his style is quite aggressive. It’s a bit of an all-or-nothing approach,” Kankkunen said bluntly.
Expectations had been high for Rovanperä following his dominant performance in the Canary Islands Rally. Even so, second place would be a strong result in terms of the World Championship battle.
“In my view, Kalle drove well. He himself wasn’t too pleased, as he couldn’t drive as fast as he would’ve liked. He felt there wasn’t enough grip. But he did a great job, just like all our boys,” Kankkunen summarised.
“It just didn’t come together. He was surely disappointed about having to open the road, which made it hard to find grip. It’s tough to suddenly find more speed and change rhythm for a new day. Sometimes it just doesn’t click,” Kankkunen added.
Once again, the Toyota camp emphasised there would be no team orders.
–”Whatever I say, they’re going to drive flat out anyway. There’s no need for any special tactics. Just let them go for it,” Kankkunen concluded.
