Fellow rally heavyweight Sébastien Loeb was less fortunate. The nine-time champion’s Puma suffered an engine fire on the Friday, however the M-Sport driver still managed to finish eighth.
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville dragged his i20 home fifth after a series of mechanical issues. Team-mate Oliver Solberg’s stricken car ended up cancelling the opening stage of Sunday when fesh-fesh struck again, his car croaking after ingesting too much sand.
Things were even worse for Hyundai’s Ott Tänak who suffered a broken gearstick, propshaft and power-steering failure, the Estonian unsurprisingly made the finish.
Proceedings at M-Sport were similarly eventful: Craig Breen managed sixth, but Gus Greensmith rolled his Puma, while team-mate Adrien Formaux also crashed out– both were made to help their mechanics fix their respective machines by M-Sport head Malcom Wilson..
When asked if he thought if the boss was trying to teach him a lesson, Formaux replied, “Probably, yes.”
Rovanperä now has a commanding 65 lead over Neuiville in the standings in the title standings, on 146 points to the Belgian’s 80.