The Toyota driver had been sharp from the off, setting back-to-back stage wins on Friday morning. But the final stage of the opening loop turned against the Finnish star.
Rovanperä clipped a bank, damaging his car and picking up a puncture. That dropped him from the rally lead down to ninth place, more than a minute off the front.
“Just went wide. No real bigger explanation than that,” Rovanperä said coolly.
“This one narrow place has been tricky every year under braking and I still missed it a bit. It wasn’t such a big hit on the bank, but still unfortunate enough.”
Before the mistake, Rovanperä had once again been right on the pace. The puncture came at the worst possible time, on the rally’s longest stage, costing him heavily.
“That’s why the gap grew so big. In the afternoon we’ll try to close it down a bit,” Rovanperä explained.
On the afternoon loop, Rovanperä has a realistic chance to overtake his team-mate Takamoto Katsuta and Grégoire Munster. But he faces a gap of more than 45 seconds to sixth-placed Sami Pajari, and sits exactly 1m05.6s behind the leader.
Every point in Chile is vital for Rovanperä’s championship hopes. The rally is currently led by title rival Elfyn Evans, followed by Hyundai’s Ott Tänak and Adrien Fourmaux, with Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier fourth. Of the leading quartet, Evans, Tänak and Ogier are also in the title fight alongside Rovanperä.
The same three stages will be repeated in the afternoon before the overnight halt.
“Obviously the afternoon is always a bit more tricky. Gaps will be smaller, so we just need to make the right tyre call, try to drive well and see what we can get from that,” Rovanperä noted.
