At the end of Friday, Kalle Rovanpera keeps his first place in Latvia with Martins Sesks and Sebastien Ogier following him.
Kalle Rovanpera extended his lead over the home hero Martins Sesks as he was the fastest driver in SS6, SS7 and SS8.
Sesks continued his impressive performance by setting the second-fastest time in two stages on Friday afternoon while he had a little moment in the same junction as EP had in SS5.
Sebastien Ogier is still fighting with Sesks for the second place and set the fastest time in Stage 5, but the last one managed to take a breath after the end of SS5.
Takamoto Katsuta does the 3-4 for Toyota as he climbed to fourth at the end of Stage 8. In fact, Katsuta was behind Tanak for 2,9 seconds at the end of SS7.
Adrien Fourmaux gained two places in total and is fifth overall after the end of SS8. He was sixth since the end of SS5 as he passed Evans despite the fact that he had a small sideways moment on the shortest stage of the day. Moreover, he was 1,6 seconds behind Katsuta after the end of SS7.
Ott Tanak lost two positions in Stage 8 and is just 0,3 seconds behind Fourmaux, but he dropped many seconds in Stage 7 as he faced an issue with his brakes. However, he did some repairs on the road section before the start of Stage 8 and solved the problem with his car's brakes.
Gregoire Munster managed to keep Thierry Neuville behind at ninth place despite the fact that the M-Sport Ford driver took the rear of his Puma slightly wide in a right-hander in SS6, thus their gap was at 0,2 seconds in favor of Munster.
Esapekka Lappi's race worsened in Stage 5 when he hit a rock on a junction resulting in the tyre going off the rim. In addition to that, there was no midday service today which means that he and Janne Ferm could do only some repairs to the bent steering wheel. Finally, the front splitter of his i20N was broken when he got to the finish line of SS8, but he dropped two places and completes the top ten.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch below the overall classification after the end of SS8:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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