Esapekka Lappi maintained his Rally Turkey lead on Saturday, ahead of team-mate Sebastien Ogier, while World Rally championship leader Ott Tanak retired with an electrical issue.
Ogier had managed to close the gap to his Citroen team-mate down to 2.2s after the second stage on Saturday morning, but Lappi won Kizlan – a new stage for 2019 – to extend his lead back to 10 seconds.
But it was a morning to forget for championship leader Tanak, who broke down with an electrical issue whilst heading to the Datca stage.
The Toyota driver completed the first stage, having gone fifth fastest, but his car failed to re-start as he headed to the next stage.
Tanak later confirmed that his Yaris went into “safe mode”, meaning he has to miss the remaining stages of the day.
Thierry Neuville also had a difficult morning and rolled his Hyundai i20 on to its side after hitting a stone 17km in to SS8.
Neuville was able to right his car back on to its wheels to continue, but the incident lost him four minutes dropping him down to eighth.
Despite his issues in the opening stage of the morning, the i20 driver still managed to retain his pace and set the second fastest time in Kizlan.
Andreas Mikkelsen had a strong morning, moving up to third, having won Datca but is 1m8s behind the leading Citroen pair.
Teemu Suninen is in fourth, ahead of the Citroen of Dani Sordo, while Jari-Matti Latvala had an encouraging morning by moving up to sixth and ahead of Kris Meeke.
Meeke made another mistake in the rally, spinning his Yaris in SS10 Kizlan, and is seventh, just 0.1s behind Latvala.
Pontus Tidemand is up to ninth in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta, with Skoda driver Kajetan Kajetanowicz rounding out the top 10.
Jan Kopecky runs in 11th overall and is leading WRC2 Pro.
Results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Esapekka Lappi, J.Ferm | Citroen Total WRT | Citroen | 2h40m15.6s |
| 2 | Sebastien Ogier, J.Ingrassia | Citroen Total WRT | Citroen | 10.0s |
| 3 | Andreas Mikkelsen, A.Jager | Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT | Hyundai | 1m08.1s |
| 4 | Teemu Suninen, J.Lehtinen | M-Sport Ford WRT | Ford | 1m20.7s |
| 5 | Dani Sordo, C.del Barrio | Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT | Hyundai | 2m10.9s |
| 6 | Jari-Matti Latvala, M.Anttila | Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT | Toyota | 2m36.6s |
| 7 | Kris Meeke, S.Marshall | Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT | Toyota | 2m36.7s |
| 8 | Thierry Neuville, N.Gilsoul | Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT | Hyundai | 4m50.5s |
| 9 | Pontus Tidemand, O.Floene | M-Sport Ford WRT | Ford | 5m36.8s |
| 10 | Kajetan Kajetanowicz, M.Szczepaniak | Kajetan Kajetanowicz | Skoda | 10m19.0s |
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