WRC Rally Portugal: Rovanpera dominates Saturday to close in on first 2023 win
14th May 2023Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera dominated Saturday during the WRC’s 2023 Rally Portugal to lead the field by 57.5 seconds over Hyundai’s Daniel Sordo.
How the second day unfolded…
Rovanpera put in a dominating performance throughout the second day of running to put nearly a minute between himself and, second-placed, Sordo.
In the morning loop, Rovanpera blasted through and secured all of the morning stage wins which established a 52.4s second gap over the second-placed man. However, the Finn could not repeat the earlier action as Sordo fought back to win two stage wins (SS13 and SS15) to try and eat into Rovanpera’s lead.
Despite Sordo’s two stage wins, Rovanpera still edged out his gap to 59.4 seconds, with one minute and 10.2 seconds in hand over Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville.
In turn, this left both Neuville and his teammate, Esapekka Lappi, to battle it out for the final podium position in third and fourth respectively.
Pierre Louis-Loubet ignited M-Sport Ford’s troubles on Saturday. The Frenchman started the day in fourth, mixed between the Hyundai’s of Neuville and Lappi. However, as Loubt clipped the apex around a tight left-hand corner, the French driver’s Puma ricocheted across the gravel and into the adjacent grass bank.
After he nursed steering issues, Loubet finished the day 37th.
Ford’s Ott Tanak soon followed suit with his own problem as a rock smashed the Estonian’s windscreen on SS13. Fortunately, the rogue rock only damaged the co-drivers portion of the windscreen.
Despite the crack, Tanak managed to maintain his fifth position in the overall standings albeit two minutes and 21 seconds behind Rovanpera.
Takamoto Katsuta, Toyota’s only other remaining driver following Elfyn Evans’ untimely crash the first day, was on a recovery drive after the Japanese driver stopped out on the liaison section prior to the stage.
However, Katsuta had a spin 4.3 miles into the 11th stage after he clicked the outside ditch around a tight right-hand corner amongst the forest. The Toyota driver managed to finish off the stage with superficial damage to his Yaris.
After the second super special stage of the weekend, at the end of Saturday, Katsuta climbed up to 38th after he started the day 61st in the timing order.
Top three:
- Kalle Rovanpera, Toyota
- Daniel Sordo, Hyundai
- Thierry Neuville, Hyundai
That’s all for the article; WRC Rally Portugal: Rovanpera dominates Saturday to close in on first 2023 win!
What has been your favourite moment of the WRC Rally Portugal so far? Let us know in the comments!
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