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Motorsport

Sport

Zebra avoidance triggers costly puncture for Rovanpera at WRC Safari Rally

Rovanpera (Organization) Kenya WRC Thierry Neuville Safari Rally Elfyn Evans Hyundai Adrien Fourmaux Gregoire Munster Josh McErlean

Kalle Rovanpera’s Safari Rally victory bid has been dented by a pair of costly punctures, the second caused by an off-road excursion to avoid a herd of zebra.

The two-time world champion started Saturday 7.7 seconds behind leader and Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans but ended the morning loop of stages, which featured tricky wet and muddy sections, 1m32.5s adrift.

Rovanpera’s front-right Hankook tyre deflated towards the end of stage 12, which resulted in the Finn dropping 37s adrift of Evans. But in the final stage of the loop he was unfortunate to lose the front left to avoid a collision with zebras.

“It was not an easy morning. Unfortunately we had two punctures – the first one in the middle stage just came from somewhere, I have no idea,” said Rovanpera.

“On the last one we had a good pace and then maybe after halfway we had a big group of zebra on the road and I was coming flat out, 200km/h, so I just needed to avoid them and go off the stage to the side. We hit some rocks and again we got a puncture and we lost a lot of time.

“Let’s hope we have a bit better luck with everything and maybe gain some time back.”

Rovanpera’s punctures helped ease the pressure slightly on leader Evans. The Welshman’s GR Yaris also suffered a tyre failure at the end of stage 13 and had to slow down for zebras on three occasions.

When asked about his lead, he said: “It is not a gap in these conditions - you just have to drive and see what happens. I can’t take anything for granted.”

Neuville feeling 15-20% with illness, set-up issues hold Hyundai back

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1 (Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool)

The tricky wet and muddy sections didn’t suit Hyundai as the South Korean marque’s victory hopes began to wilt.

On top of the i20 N’s struggles to cope with the conditions, world champion Thierry Neuville revealed he was battling illness that he felt stemmed from spending too much time working on the car in the hot conditions on Friday.

Neuville also picked up a puncture in stage 11, which prompted a swift 1m25s wheel change. The Belgian ended the loop dropping to fifth, 1m29.4s behind Takamato Katsuta's Toyota in fourth.

“I’m maybe at 15% or 20%, I don’t know,” said Neuville. “I think yesterday we pushed too hard working on the car in the sun. I felt very bad last night; I couldn’t sleep all night, spending my time on the toilet, and it's not working any better this morning.

“It was tough. I tried to do my best but I was struggling like hell with the conditions. I couldn’t make the car turn in, in the rough sections.

“I don’t know if we will change the dampers but I was crashing through all of the time, there were many big hits and the speed wasn’t there.

“I am trying to look after the car a bit more definitely but I was trying as well yesterday. It is just the conditions, in the muddy sections I had no control. I’m just a passenger so I don’t want to take any risks.”

Ott Tanak mirrored Neuville in terms of punctures, after losing a tyre in stage 11. That combined with the i20 N’s difficulties in wet conditions left the Estonian in third, 1m49.5s from the lead.

“We are adrift because we had a puncture, on pure performance we were very far away today comparing to the Toyotas that are very strong in these tricky conditions,” said Tanak.

Following the reliability concerns highlighted on Friday, Hyundai took a cautious approach by deciding not to field Adrien Fourmaux for Saturday’s stages following his retirement on Friday.

“With nothing to gain today, we’ve elected not to restart Adrien and Alex today in order to have the car in the best possible shape to attack Super Sunday,” read a statement from the team.

Elsewhere, M-Sport-Ford endured an eventful morning with both Josh McErlean and Gregoire Munster hitting trouble.

McErlean stopped twice in the infamous Sleeping Warrior stage. The second halt necessitated a lengthy repair on a broken steering arm that cost the Irishman almost half an hour, dropping him from seventh to 15th.

Munster, meanwhile, knocked a tyre off the rim before suffering another puncture as the Luxembourger ended the loop in ninth overall.

In WRC2, the lead changed hands twice as overnight pacesetter Kajetan Kajetanowicz was among those that hit trouble in Sleeping Warrior. That handed Gus Greensmith the lead, but a puncture in stage 12 meant Jan Solans took the WRC2 lead by 12s, sitting seventh overall.