Toyota’s Sami Pajari is poised to win Rally Finland with a 46.6s advantage after Sébastien Ogier suffered a frightening crash from the lead.
Reigning world champion Ogier and stand-in co-driver Julien Ingrassia were in command of the rally, 20.9s clear when their Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 car fired off the road at speed in stage 17. The car rolled several times towards the trees, prompting organisers to cancel the stage.
Update: Both crew members exited the car unassisted and were reported to be “generally ok” before being transported to hospital for precautionary checks. It is unclear exactly what caused the car to run off the road. Toyota issued an update on the conditions of Ogier and Ingrassia late on Saturday night, confirming that hospital examinations have been positive.
"We are pleased to report that the results of the hospital examinations for both Seb and Julien have been positive. Due to the heavy impact during the accident, the crew will remain in hospital under observation overnight. The crews and the team would like to thank everybody from the medical teams to the fans for their massive support and well wishes," according to a statement from Toyota.
Ogier’s exit handed Pajari the lead of his home rally, and he is now on course to claim back-to-back victories just two weeks after his first WRC win in Estonia. The Finn just needs to successfully navigate two passes through the Himos-Jämsä stage on Sunday. "The afternoon loop has been managing the speed, but still having flow and rhythm. Even, this stage I still enjoyed it, but still two long stages to do and anything can still happen."
When asked what it was like to be leading the rally, Pajari joked: "I can't hear you."
Oliver Solberg will head into Sunday as Pajari’s nearest rival after avoiding the drama that engulfed many of his rivals.
"First of all, it was very scary to see Seb and Julien. Never nice to see and I hope they're okay. That was nasty. We keep doing our thing, since our issues yesterday and this morning holding position, waiting for things to happen. Let's see how the feeling is tomorrow,” said Solberg.
Championship leader Elfyn Evans ended the day in third position (+1m36.3s) despite rolling his GR Yaris and becoming stuck in a ditch in stage 14, the final test of the morning loop.
Prior to the roll, Evans had applied pressure on Ogier, cutting the gap to the leader to 11.6s. With the help of spectators, Evans managed to rejoin the stage but lost more than 1m40s and fell to fifth. Toyota’s mechanics then completed a heroic repair during midday service, allowing him to rejoin the fight without incurring any penalties.
“It was amazing. We don’t have a 40 minute service anymore and that was quite a job list so they were super calculated and did an incredible job. I owe still being in the rally to them really,” Evans told Autosport.com.
“There was a lot of precautionary work. The four wheels were relatively straight but obviously there were quite a lot of big hits but we didn’t really know what had taken hits. There was quite a lot of work to get the tailgate and the wing back on and then we had to change all four corners naturally.
“We can’t deny that we were lucky this time.”
Evans then became locked in a fight with Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux over third with the pair recording identical overall times after stage 17. Evans pulled clear of the Frenchman by 3.8s after the final stage.
“We are fourth tonight, we were sixth at the start of the morning. Personally I gave everything this afternoon. It was cool to be on equal times after one and a half days. It was incredible after all the things that have happened,” Fourmaux told Autosport.com.
Takamoto Katsuta ended the day fifth after using much of Saturday to experiment with set-up changes ahead of Super Sunday. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville moved into sixth on the final stage, just 1.5s ahead of M-Sport-Ford's Josh McErlean, despite suffering a front-left puncture.
M-Sport's Martins Sesks was another Saturday casualty, rolling his M-Sport Ford Puma. Both he and co-driver Renars Francis were unharmed and are expected to restart on Sunday.
Toyota WRC team principal Jari-Matti Latvala leads the Rally2 class and sits eighth overall, ahead of WRC2 frontrunners Teemu Suninen and Robert Virves.
