Oliver Solberg extended his Rally Estonia lead on Saturday as he continues a remarkable debut drive with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team.
Making his first start at rallying’s top level since 2022, Solberg took a lead of 12.4 seconds into the longest day of the rally – made up of nine stages totalling 125.76 competitive kilometres – aware that any road position advantage he capitalised on during Friday would be reduced now that his nearest rivals were running directly in front of him on the road.
He soon showed this would be no problem, however, by claiming stage wins in the first three tests of a high-speed morning loop and rapidly expanding his advantage to 23s. Even with that more comfortable margin to lean upon, he set a further fastest time in the third stage of the afternoon and finished the day 21.1s ahead of the duelling Hyundai pairing of Ott Tänak and Thierry Neuville.
Kalle Rovanperä couldn’t match the pace of the podium fight but remains in fourth position overall. Takamoto Katsuta was in a close battle with fifth-placed Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) through the morning and remains within 8.6s overnight, with championship leader Elfyn Evans 13.6s further back in seventh. Sami Pajari is one place further back in eighth having enjoyed a clean and consistent day in his TGR-WRT2 entry.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“Oliver did a great job again today. Yesterday he made the most of his starting position but today he was able to keep up the same pace compared to the others, which was very impressive. He’s feeling comfortable in the car and the times are coming without any crazy risk. There’s still quite a long day tomorrow, but he just needs to carry on as he’s been doing and I’m sure he’ll be fine. For our other drivers it’s not been so easy but there’s still good chances tomorrow to go for some extra points and we will be giving it our all.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s not been the day we wanted and we haven’t been able to climb the leaderboard like we hoped we might. The times have been tight between everybody and it’s been hard to make big differences. Some stages have felt quite OK behind the wheel, but it seems we’ve been missing some speed to challenge the top times. We’ve been experimenting with the setup to find a better feeling and I think we’ve got a good idea of what we want to go with tomorrow, and we’ll give it our best shot.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It’s been a tricky day, much the same as yesterday. These stages always feel super nice to drive and I tried my best in every stage, but the pace was not there to do anything more. On the smaller, softer roads we can see that we have the pace on the split times, but we don’t have it on the wider more hard-packed roads. We’re working hard with the team to try and find that last bit. We will see how the conditions are tomorrow, as some rain can always mix things up, and try to catch some more points.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“Today the feeling was definitely better than yesterday. We found a good direction with the setup to make the car better. The stages are enjoyable but you just need to be committed to make a good time and it’s not easy with the tricky, narrower sections. The gap has been tight between me and Adrien. Something didn’t feel quite right in the afternoon but I’m sure it will be fine for tomorrow and I’ll try my best to get as many points as I can for the team.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“Today was quite fine I believe. After what happened yesterday, we didn’t really have anything to fight for in terms of the result so it was just about trying to have a good feeling with the car and a good drive and take what we can from here to prepare for the next event in Finland. Considering our road position, which still seemed to be playing a big role, I think some of the stage times were not too bad and we’ll try to continue like this tomorrow.”
Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It has been another absolutely amazing day today, with consistent speed and no mistakes. It wasn’t our plan to extend the gap – I expected that our rivals might fight back with their improved road positions – but that we were able to do so is fantastic. The car was working really well and I was just trying to do my thing, still having fun while also learning some new things and trying to control the speed a bit this afternoon. Tomorrow I’ll just try to carry on with the same rhythm.”
End of day three (Saturday):
1 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2h08m05.4s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +21.1s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +25.1s
4 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +51.6s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m08.2s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m16.8s
7 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m30.4s
8 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m14.5s
9 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m48.5s
10 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +4m13.6s
(Results as of 18:30 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What’s next?
Three stages form Sunday’s route with a total of 60.19 competitive kilometres. The first stage, Hellenurme, is new for the drivers while Kääriku uses part of last year’s Mäeküla test and is run twice, with the second pass serving as the rally-ending Power Stage.
Follow us!
Follow TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT:
∇Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/TOYOTAGAZOORacingWRC
∇X : https://www.x.com/TGR_WRC (@TGR_WRC)
∇Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/tgr_wrc/ (@TGR_WRC)
∇YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCtALHup92q5xIFb7n9UXVg
';