The Finnish driver, piloting a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, set three consecutive fastest times during the morning loop. Korhonen began the day trailing Italy’s Andrea Mabellini by just over ten seconds. By the end of the morning stages, he had narrowed the gap to a mere 1.9 seconds.
“Just going flat out. We are trying, but it was quite slippery and difficult stage. We had a hard impact to the car, so we have to check that,” Korhonen reported at the finish of the morning’s final stage.
Mabellini, driving a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, struggled to match Korhonen’s pace during the morning. On the concluding stage of the loop, Nagylőtér, Mabellini lost 3.2 seconds to the Finnish driver.
“This stage was crazy. We had many, many, many moments without doing anything. I was thinking we had at least three punctures,” Mabellini recounted.
Simone Tempestini, who had been holding third place, suffered a puncture on the third stage of the morning loop, which featured challenging conditions with ruts and loose rocks. As a result, Tempestini dropped to fifth place, behind Mads Østberg and Mikołaj Marczyk.
Despite the setback, Tempestini remains within striking distance of the podium, trailing Østberg by just ten seconds.
The rally continues with three more special stages on Sunday afternoon.
Rally Hungary standings after SS10/13:
| POS | Driver | Car | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Andrea Mabellini | Skoda | 1:25:48.4 |
| 2. | Roope Korhonen | Toyota | +1.9 |
| 3. | Mads Østberg | Citroen | +48.9 |
| 4. | Mikolaj Marczyk | Skoda | +50.4 |
| 5. | Simone Tempestini | Skoda | +58.8 |
| 6. | Isak Reiersen | Skoda | +1:42.2 |
| 7. | Jakub Matulka | Skoda | +2:21.3 |
| 8. | Gabor Nemet | Skoda | +3:57.3 |
