WRC Rally Chile: Tanak pulls away, Neuville unhurt in big crash – WRC

Toyota’s Ott Tanak edged further ahead of reigning World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier on Rally Chile’s Saturday morning stages, while Thierry Neuville escaped unhurt from his massive crash.

Though Tanak only won one stage from three on Saturday morning, the loop-ending Pelun test, he gained more than 10 seconds over Ogier in all, extending his lead to 34.6s.

Ogier was initially being closed down by current WRC points leader Neuville, who had topped the times on the opening Rio Lia test and gained 5.7s on the Citroen driver.

But Neuville’s chase came to an abrupt halt on SS8, when he ran wide over a crest, hit a bank and rolled his Hyundai i20 several times, badly damaging his car and forcing him to retire.

The stage was stopped to allow Neuville to be checked by the medical team, and he was then taken to hospital in Concepcion for what Hyundai called “further examination”. Soon afterwards Hyundai tweeted that its driver had escaped the crash with “no fractures or injuries”.

Neuville’s exit promoted Jari-Matti Latvala, who had initially dropped behind him to fourth place, back to the final podium position.

Ogier is 16.4s clear of Latvala, who was slightly delayed on SS7 by his Toyota team-mate Kris Meeke, with the Northern Irishman cruising through the stage after rolling his Yaris.

He lost 20.1s in all on Rio Lia in all but suggested some of that deficit would be recovered with an adjusted notional time – though for now his stage time remains the same.

Hyundai’s best placed driver after Neuville’s retirement is now Sebastien Loeb, who has closed up to only 1.1s behind Latvala in fifth place.

Loeb gained time on Latvala during all three runs on Saturday morning, including a stage win on Maria Las Cruces.

Elfyn Evans is over a minute and a half up on his M-Sport team-mate Teemu Suninen, as they occupy fifth and sixth places.

Esapekka Lappi moved up to seventh at the expense of Andreas Mikkelsen on Maria Las Cruces, after Mikkelsen had already been demoted a place by Suninen one stage earlier.

The Norwegian driver was the slowest driver bar gentleman driver Lorenzo Bertelli for most of the morning and is already 22.8s behind Lappi.

Despite losing several minutes with his roll, Meeke is currently in ninth place, having completed the last two stages of the Saturday morning loop at full speed and without a front windscreen.

Meeke is expected to be demoted out of the top 10 when notional times are handed out for Maria Las Cruces, which was red flagged for Neuville’s accident.

Kalle Rovanpera, who is likely to move ahead of Meeke into ninth place once notional times are in place, had looked set to concede the lead in WRC2 Pro to Mads Ostberg on Rio Lia.

But late on the morning’s first test, brake fluid started to leak from the Citroen C3 R5’s rear brakes – which cost Ostberg over half a minute.

Leading positions after SS9