The Poland Rally is truly exciting. Kalle Rovanperä is leading this seventh round of the World Rally Championship (WRC), but with only four stages left, he has only a 9.4s lead over Andreas Mikkelsen.
Disputes have already taken place in 15 stages, seven of them on Saturday, which started with Mikkelsen in the lead. The Norwegian Hyundai driver started losing ground early in the day, being overtaken by Rovanperä (Toyota) in the next stage – SS10 in Gołdap. Elfyn Evans (Toyota) also moved ahead of the Nordic driver.
That was the order at the end of the morning, but the afternoon began with Mikkelsen surpassing Evans in SS13 (Świętajno 2). Rovanperä was the fastest in all the afternoon stages, and this dominance gave him a 9.4s lead over Mikkelsen at the end of the day. Evans is now in third place, 16.1s behind.
Called at the last minute to replace Sébastien Ogier after he was injured in an accident during reconnaissance, Rovanperä showed his superiority on Saturday, only missing out on victory in one of the seven stages.
Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) is in fourth place, exactly 37 seconds behind the leader, while the top five is rounded out by Mārtiņš Sesks (M-Sport Ford), who continues to surprise. He now has a 0.1s lead over the immediate rival behind him, who is championship leader Thierry Neuville (Hyundai). The Belgian has been consistently far from the top since SS2.
In the other categories, Sami Pajari (Toyota) leads the WRC2 with a clear 26.3s advantage over Oliver Solberg (Skoda), who overtook Robert Virves (Skoda) in the last stage on Saturday. Pajari also leads the WRC2 Challenger, with a 29.4s lead over Virves, while Josh McErlean (Skoda) is in third place.
As for the WRC3, with only eight drivers in the race, the battle is intense: Jakub Matulka (Ford) is the leader with a slim 5.5s margin over Diego Domínguez Jr. (Ford), while Nataniel Bruun (Ford) is in third place. Armin Kremer (Skoda) is at the top of the WRC Masters Cup, with a lead of 1m55.9s over Michał Sołowow (Skoda). The third-place driver in the class is Ricardo Triviño (Skoda), who is five minutes behind the leader.
Top ten overall after SS15:
