Rally Croatia: Evans leads day two as Neuville retires
23rd April 2023Toyota’s Elfyn Evans leads Rally Croatia ahead of M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak after Hyundai’s leading man, Thierry Neuville, retired on Saturday morning.
How the day unfolded…
Neuville led the day after establishing his lead on Friday and started the second day of running 5.7 seconds ahead of Toyota’s leading driver: Evans. The Belgian edged out his rally lead to 10.8 seconds over the Toyota after the opening two stages but stage 11 – Ravna Gora: Skrad 1 – saw Neuville’s day come to an early end.
As the Belgian blasted his Irish-coloured Hyundai around a fast right-hander, the i20’s rear end stepped out briefly before it collided with a concrete block, which caused irreversible damage, and connected with a tree.
In turn, this allowed Evans to inherit the rally lead who was 19.1 seconds ahead of, now second-placed, Ott Tanak (M-Sport Ford).
Between the new top two drivers, Evans and Tanak, the battle intensified as the Welshman tried to maintain the gap while Tanak tried to cut it down. On SS13 Tanak cut the gap down from 22 seconds to 15.9 before he took another three seconds out of Evans’ lead.
However, by the end of the day, Evans managed to rebuild his lead to 25.4 seconds helped by Tanak who had suffered a handbrake issue in the latter stages of the day.
In the final podium-awarding position, in third, Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi moved up the order after day two due to his teammate’s misfortunes. However, the Finn had a lonely time in third as he couldn’t find traction to eat into Tanak’s time yet keeping Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier at bay.
Day two continued Ogier’s recovery drive after he was handed a one-minute penalty for not having his safety harness correctly fastened on stage two. The eight-time world champion sat in seventh at the start of the day two-minutes behind Neuville’s time, yet 25.6 seconds behind sixth-placed teammate, Takamoto Katsuta.
By the end of the second day, Ogier moved up in the order and finished in fourth place – one minute and 45 seconds adrift of the rally leaders. Ogier’s promotion from seventh to fourth was very much helped by his victories in three stages: SS12, SS13 and SS16.
Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera and Katsuta, alongside M-Sport Ford’s Pierre-Louis Loubet, rounded out the remaining WRC runners in fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
That’s all for the article; Rally Croatia: Evans leads day two as Neuville retires.
Who do you think will secure the win in Croatia? Let us know in the comments!
Read more WRC here:
- Hyundai dress in Irish colours for WRC tribute to Craig Breen
- WRC Rally Croatia Preview: Hyundai to compete in honour of Craig Breen
- Craig Breen dies in pre-event crash ahead of Rally Croatia
- Ogier takes control of Rally Mexico as Lappi crashes out on Saturday
- Rally Mexico: Lappi takes over as Ogier trails just behind
- Rally Mexico: Tanak dominates opening stages to take early lead
Give us a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up with the latest news from the world of Motorsport! You can also support us on Patreon!
Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
