At the end of the morning loop of Friday, Ott Tanak the leader of Rally de Portugal with Kalle Rovanpera and Dani Sordo following him.
Ott Tanak took the lead from his teammate Pierre-Louis Loubet at the end of Stage 2 after his setting the fastest time there despite the fact that a water leaking on his windscreen was very distracting for him.
Kalle Rovanpera climbed to second place overall after the final stage of the morning and managed to set a better pace in SS3 as he changed the set-up of his Yaris after his reported understeer on the pervious stage.
Dani Sordo dropped behind Rovanpera at the end of SS3 and lost one place as he could not find pace with his i20N on the final two stages of Friday morning. Their gap is at 0,6 seconds before heading to SS4.
Thierry Neuville is fourth overall and followed a careful approach as he wanted to take care of his tyres. In Stage 2, he had a vibration on the rear-left and he thought that one of his tyres was delaminated.
Elfyn Evans completes the top five and lost many time in all morning stages due to the fact that he started first on the road after his being the championship leader. However, he gained three places after SS3 taking advantage from Lappi's lack of pace and Katsuta's retirement.
Pierre-Louis Loubet dropped from third to sixth after SS3 and was the leader of Rally de Portugal after his setting the fastest time in SS1. In addition to that, he beat Sordo for three tenths of a second in SS1, but afterwards he dropped time in comparison with the leading duo. Last but not least, his rally may be over for the day as he left immpediately from the stop line of SS3 due to the fact that something was burning inside his Puma and he and Nicolas Gilsoul used the fire extinguisher.
Esapekka Lappi lost his place over Neuville and Evans and is now seventh overall as he did not expect that he would lose time on all the morning stages.
Takamoto Katsuta was fifth overall after SS2, but he was forced to retire before the start of SS3 due to electrical issues. More specifically, he carried an alternator warning light for two stages and tried to fix this problem on the road section. Due to the fact that there is no midday service, Toyota decided to withdraw his car for the rest of the day.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch the overall classification after SS3:
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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