Rally Chile - 2nd Day - 1st Loop: Evans distances his teammate Rovanpera, Ogier retires

At the end of Saturday morning, Elfyn Evans extends his lead in Chile with Kalle Rovanpera and Ott Tanak following him.

Elfyn Evans was the overnight leader of Rally Chile as the stewards gave to him a new notional time at the end of Friday while he was the fastest driver in SS7 and SS9. In fact, he did not push so much in Stage 8 in order to save his tyres for the longest stage of the loop which was Stage 9. 

Kalle Rovanpera does the 1-2 for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and set the fastest time in Stage 8. He put himself even closer to Evans at the end of SS8 as their gap was at 1,8 seconds, but now he is 11,3 seconds behind the Welshman.

Ott Tanak dropped from second to third at the end of Stage 8 when he had a half spin resulting in losing time. Moreover, Hyundai protested against Evans's new notional time, but the stewards rejected their request, thus Tanak started his Saturday from the second place.

Thierry Neuville gained two positions and is now in fourth overall despite the fact that he was struggling with his car as his mechanics made some changes to the dampers and the springs yesterday. However, he mentioned at the end of SS9 that he had some serious problems with his i20N, but he did not say anything more about it. Firstly, the Belgian overtook Munster for the fifth place at the end of Stage 7 while Pajari kept him behind him until the end of Stage 8.

Sami Pajari slipped behind Neuville at the end of Stage 9 and completes the top five on his second outing with the Yaris at the top level.

Gregoire Munster lost two places and is now sixth, but his position is under threat by his teammate Adrien Fourmaux who is just four tenths of a second behind him.

Esapekka Lappi is eighth as his i20N had low downforce due to the fact that he slid wide in the beginning on a muddy corner of SS7 and was not able to see the road due to the front bumper. However, he found the chance and used a cut to rip the front bumper off his i20N. However, he was seventh at the end of Stage 8 and was ahead of Fourmaux for 3,7 seconds.

Sebastien Ogier was forced to retire with a front right suspension damage in Stage 8 when he hit a rock and beached his car into a bank 25.1 Km into the stage.

Watch below the stage times:

Watch below the overall classification after the end of SS9:

Photo Credits: Toyota