Eight-time world champion Ogier started Saturday with a 22.8s lead and the Toyota driver went on to stamp his authority on the event in the afternoon.
However, heavy rain arrived during the day’s final stage, which allowed Rovanpera to cut Ogier’s lead to 16.7s ahead of Sunday’s final six stages.
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans ended the day in 2m23.3s down on Rovanpera in third after leapfrogging team-mate Takamoto Katsuta in the tricky wet conditions in stage 13. Dani Sordo led Hyundai’s charge in fifth (+3m52.3s) after team-mate Esapekka Lappi retired on stage 11 with a mechanical issue.
M-Sport’s Ott Tanak and Pierre-Louis Loubet managed to survive to hold onto sixth and seventh overall, while Thierry Neuville has recovered to ninth after his Friday retirement behind WRC2 leader Kajetan Kajetanowicz.
The afternoon began with Ogier seemingly putting a stop to Rovanpera's Saturday morning charge by claiming his sixth stage win in the 29.32km Soysambu test, which was held in much drier conditions compared to the morning pass.
Ogier was 6.4s faster than nearest rival Rovanpera, but the Frenchman’s run wasn’t completely clean after reaching the stage end with foliage protruding from his GR Yaris.
Rovanpera admitted that he wasn’t pushing in the stage with his main focus on bringing the car to the end of the day, given his title rivals Tanak and Neuville were sitting sixth and 14th respectively.
But the big story from the stage was the demise of Lappi, who pulled off the stage and into retirement with a prop shaft-related issue. The Finn suffered a similar problem in Wednesday’s shakedown.
Lappi's woes handed Evans third overall, although the Welshman was only 2.8s ahead of the chasing Katsuta.
Source: Autosport