“We went a bit wide in one wrong place and had the puncture from there. The good result is again gone really quickly, so that is really disappointing,” said Rovanpera, who started the rally seven points behind points leader Evans in the title race.
Evans took the stage win from Tanak by a second which was enough to lift the Welshman into the rally lead following Rovanpera’s tyre issue.
“Obviously the weather has definitely helped. It [the morning] looks not too bad,” said Evans.
All three Hyundai drivers reported handling issues with their i20 Ns across the morning loop but it was Tanak who seemed to cope the best. Fourmaux was struggling particularly with the rear of his car and survived a wild slide in stage three, before ending the loop in third. Meanwhile, reigning world champion Thierry Neuville described his lack of trust in the car as a “nightmare” as the Belgian headed to service in fifth, 14.5s adrift.
The handling issues were not confined to the Hyundai camp, as Ogier also struggled with the feeling of his GR Yaris. The Rally Paraguay winner dropped 9.2s in the opening stage, before admitting he was “on the limit” in stage three, where he was 6.5s slower than team-mate Evans.
“I’m on the limit, I cannot be faster so we need to make some changes on the car,” said Ogier.
Toyota’s Sami Pajari showed flashes of speed on his way to sixth, ahead of M-Sport-Ford’s Gregoire Munster, who lost time to a broken gear lever toward the end of the morning’s final test.
Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Takamoto Katsuta finished the loop in eighth having been hampered by set up issues and a lack of experience of the stages after missing last year’s trip to Chile. M-Sport’s Josh McErlean survived a high-speed spin in stage one that removed the front aero of his Ford Puma, resulting in the Irishman, making his Chile debut, falling to 17th overall.
Oliver Solberg rounded out the top 10 with the Swede leading the WRC2 class after recovering from a stage one spin that initially dropped him to sixth. Solberg leads Emil Lindholm by 5.9s with title rivals Nikolay Gryazin, Gus Greensmith and Yohan Rossel filling the top five. Victory for Solberg in Chile will be enough to secure the title.
A repeat of the trio of stages will conclude Friday’s action in Chile.
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