Tänak has delivered a steady and consistent performance throughout the day. He now holds a 3.5-second advantage over Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.
“We’ve been fighting, that’s for sure – also with the car,” Tänak said.
“It was quite a good run on the first one this morning, but after that, we haven’t been able to find the sweet spot – to get, let’s say, the perfect behaviour,” he admitted.
Despite the frustrations, Tänak has shown strong pace in Portugal. The Estonian has bared his teeth.
“I always try, but I mean, if the harmony with the car is not there, obviously the speed is difficult to show. The level these days is so high that everything needs to pull together,” he pointed out.
Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier climbed to third place just before the second remote service of the day, after Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux was forced to retire.
“The fight is pretty tight. A bit closer to the lead. Basically in the same position, just that Taka (Katsuta) passed us. But yeah, it’s been an okay loop for us. Little things here and there I could do slightly better, but not too bad,” Ogier summed up.
Friday at Rally Portugal concludes with three more stages.
“The first one is a second pass – we’ve done it this morning already. The two others are new stages, where I actually expect quite a lot of cleaning. So probably tough for the front-runners, but also for me, and for Taka even further behind. Yeah, it might be a difficult loop for sure. We have to try our best to get the optimum start position for tomorrow,” Ogier previewed.
