Rally Croatia - 2nd Day - 2nd Loop: Evans in control as handbrake issues hit Tanak

At the end of Saturday afternoon, Elfyn Evans remains out in front in Croatia with Ott Tanak and Esapekka Lappi following him.

Elfyn Evans is still in first place overall and responded to Ott Tanak's attack in Stage 15 where he increased his gap from 12,5 to 16,8 seconds.

The 2019 WRC Champion was in charge in this loop as he set the fastest time in SS14 while he was the second quickest driver in SS13, but he dropped some time on the final two stages in comparison with Evans as he faced handbrake issues with his Puma. Their between gap is at 25,4 seconds before heading to the final day of Croatia Rally.

Esapekka Lappi completes the top three and was on the limit on the first stage of the afternoon loop until the time he spun in a right-hander resulting in losing 16,6 seconds. He explained this spin saying that he thought that he would have understeered, so he used the handbrake to turn, but, unfortunately, there was so much gravel on that corner that caused him to have a half spin. Afterwards, he was losing time in comparison with Sebastien Ogier as he still did not feel comfortable with the behavior of his i20N.

Sebastien Ogier gained two positions at the end of Stage 13 and climbed to fourth place, as he set the benchmark in SS13 and SS16. 

Kalle Rovanpera follows his teammate for two seconds and was about to steal the fourth place from Ogier as the Finn was faster than him on all splits apart from the final one. However, he had a spin at a junction in SS13 while he was the fastest driver in SS15.

Takamoto Katsuta dropped from fourth to seventh overall at the end of the first stage of the loop, but he was able to gain one place as he was faster than Pierre-Louis Loubet in SS15.

The M-Sport driver was losing one place in each stage resulting in dropping to seventh at the end of SS15. He went off the line on the first part of SS13 and ran a bit wide, but managed to keep Rovanpera behind for 0,2 seconds after the end of that stage. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that he was the only WRC driver with six hard tyres and was not able to push as it was difficult for him to maintain the temperatures in the tyres which means that he had no grip.

Watch below the stage times:

Watch below the overall classification after SS16:

Photo Credits: Toyota