Toyota driver Solberg extends lead in Chile, Evans leads Pajari

Oliver Solberg leads after Friday’s action at the Rally Chile, whilst his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans is well on his way to keeping his closest rival in the World Rally Championship, Sami Pajari (Toyota), at bay.

Solberg took the lead as early as the first special stage of the second South American rally. Team-mate Evans struck back on SS2 and initially knocked the Swede off the top spot.

Splish splash: Oliver Solberg bei Wasserspielen

Foto: Red Bull

By the end of the morning, Solberg was decisively faster than Evans and headed into the service with a lead of 2.3 seconds. Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) had won the third special stage.

Overnight rain had made the special stages wet and treacherous in the morning, but conditions became increasingly drier in the afternoon.

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In the afternoon, Solberg put in a flawless performance and beat Evans on all three repeated special stages. The Monte Carlo winner managed this convincing run despite an incident on SS5, when he strained his back. The injury is still the result of a heavy landing six weeks ago in Finland.

“We tried to keep the gap to Elfyn and not make any mistakes so as not to lose any starting positions for tomorrow. We managed that,” commented Solberg.

Evans was not exactly thrilled to have lost ground to Solberg. In terms of the championship, however, it was still a good day, as Pajari only finished the stage in fifth place.

“The afternoon was tougher than expected. We seemed to be on the right track, but the times don’t back that up,” Evans admitted.

In third place is Hyundai driver Adrien Fourmaux, who put in a strong performance on the final special stage and sits 1.7 seconds ahead of Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) after the first day of competition. Pajari, the winner of the last three World Championship rounds, is two seconds behind the reigning world champion.

Having been in fourth place earlier in the morning, Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) finished the day in sixth place. The Belgian had to contend with a small puncture in the afternoon.

Neuville is 27.4 seconds behind the leader but holds a lead of almost one and a half minutes over Josh McErlean in the M-Sport Ford in seventh place. Just 2.4 seconds behind his team-mate is his other team-mate, Jon Armstrong.

Adrien Fourmaux liegt auf Platz drei

Foto: Red Bull

Behind Armstrong, Hyundai part-time driver Esapekka Lappi is in ninth place, 9.1 seconds adrift. The Finn admits to “form issues”.

Lancia driver Nikolay Gryazin leads the WRC2 and rounds off the top ten in the overall standings. WRC2 championship leader Robert Virves (Škoda) is 8.5 seconds behind.

Serious crashes marred the first leg. The sixth special stage was halted at the 8.5-kilometre mark at the same spot following crashes involving the WRC2 Toyota drivers Alejandro Cachon and Yuki Yamamoto. Fabrizio Zaldivar (Škoda) had already rolled his car on the fifth special stage.

Right at the start of the day, Toyota driver Takamoto Katsuta was forced to retire in his Yaris Rally1 after going off the road on SS1.