2023 Rally Sweden: Tanak snatches lead away from Breen
12th February 2023M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak snatched away the lead from the grip of Hyundai’s Craig Breen as the Estonian tops the timing board by 8.6 seconds over the Irishman.
On Saturday, seven stages lined up the third day consisting of a loop of three stages; Norrby, Floda and Savar, a 10km sprint through Umea ended the running.
Morning
The third day of running saw a titanic battle begin against Tanak and Breen. Tanak led the charge in a bid to secure Ford’s first win in a over a year, when the team secured the win in Monte-Carlo back in 2022 at the hands of Sebastien Loeb. On the other corner, Breen was in the hunt for his maiden WRC rally win.
Hyundai had the edge in the morning as Thierry Neuville and Breen secured the opening two stage wins: SS9 and SS10 respectively. The stage results boosted Breen in the overall timing sheets as the Irishman stood at the top of the order, 5.7 seconds ahead of second-placed Tanak.
The opening stage win on Saturday ignited Neuville’s comeback as he sat outside the top five in P6, 36.8s off Breen’s pace. By the end of the morning loop, Neuville cut down the deficit to 33.6s behind the Irish Hyundai.
Afternoon
Stage 12 (Norrby 2), the first stage of the afternoon loop, saw some drivers hit trouble. As both Breen and Tanak looked to fight tooth and nail for the rally win, neither driver were giving an inch.
Around a technical left-hander, on SS12, Breen nose-dived into the snowbank and ploughed snow everywhere. Fortunately, the Irishman was able to slip back out onto the stage and continue on with minimal time loss.
On the same stage, Toyota’s Elfyn Evans found himself in a spin on a fast right-hand bend after he made contact with the snowbank. Evans quickly backtracked to recorrect the direction of his Yaris. By the end of the stage, the Welshman’s time loss had demoted him down to 6th as Neuville moved up in his place.
In the following course, SS13 – the longest stage of the event, the drama continued for big names in Rally Sweden. Toyota’s reigning world champion, Kalle Rovanpera was sent into a spin at a fast left-hand corner. The rally winner, last time out, managed to quickly correct himself and get going again.
However, that was not the case for Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi who found himself in the snowbank on the final corner. In the final corner, a fast left-hander, the Finnish driver hit a snowbank and quickly beached himself in the snow as he tried to return to the stage.
As Lappi couldn’t return to the stage, the Finnish driver went from third place to 12th and out of contention for the podium.
Neuville saw out the remaining two stages victorious, winning both SS14 and SS15, to climb up into third place – 23.7 seconds off Tanak in the rally.
That’s all for the article; 2023 Rally Sweden: Tanak snatches lead away from Breen!
What did you think of the third day of running in Sweden? Let us know in the comments!
Read more WRC here:
- 2023 Rally Sweden: Breen leads Hyundai’s charge on second day
- Rovanpera sets unbeaten SS1 time in WRC Rally Sweden
- Rovanpera tops Rally Sweden Shakedown
- 2023 WRC Rally Sweden Preview
- Rossel secures victory in Monte-Carlo after Gryazin penalty
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