At the end of the Friday morning, Kalle Rovanpera is the leader of his home event with Elfyn Evans and Sebastien Ogier following him.
Kalle Rovanpera retook the lead of Rally Finland at the end of Stage 5 as he was the fastest driver in SS3 and SS5. He stole the lead from Sebastien Ogier at the end of SS3 while he said at the end of SS4 that his car was oversteering and wanted to make some set-up changes.
Elfyn Evans comes right behind his teammate for two tenths of a second and set the fastest time in SS2 and SS4 while he was the rally leader at the end of Stage 4.
Sebastien Ogier completes the 1-2-3 for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, but he dropped from first to third at the end of SS3.
Esapekka Lappi is fourth overall after Takamoto Katsuta's mistake in Stage 5 as their gap was at 0,5 seconds at the end of SS4 in favor of the Toyota driver.
Thierry Neuville follows his teammate for 4,4 seconds and a had a big slide in SS2 while he went straight on a junction after a blind corner over a crest in Stage 3 resulting in losing 13 seconds there. Moreover, he and Evans had an advantage in SS4 by starting first on the road and were able to be fastest in that stage.
Adrien Fourmaux is sixth overall and is the top M-Sport Ford driver, but he complained about the fact that he did not have a pre-event test for Rally Finland as he was not able to find the right settings for this loop.
Gregoire Munster is in seventh place overall as he lost many seconds when he ran wide stalled the engine of his Puma under the braking in Stage 2.
Sami Pajari sits at eighth position as he had to complete the Friday morning with a huge spoiler damage and a rear wing damage. More specifically, the Toyota debutant spun out in the same spot that Munster locked up in Stage 2 while he amost came off near the end of SS2 after losing the of his Yaris abd coming off a left hander which had a huge impact to the aerodynamics of his car for the rest of the loop.
Takamoto Katsuta dropped from fourth to ninth overall at the end of SS5 as he had a half spin and clipped a tree resulting in damaging the rear right suspension of his Yaris. However, he and Aaron Johnston are trying to fix the suspension in order to return back to the service park for the midday service.
Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja had a serous crash in Stage 3 of Rally Finland as they had a big slide on the exit of a corner and went off the road. Their car ended in hitting a tree and was damaged heavily, but Tanak is unharmed while Jarjeoja had to go to the hospital for medical checks as he may have back injuries.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch below the overall classification after the end of SS5:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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