The reigning world champion remained in a class of his own to claim the three morning stages to increase his rally lead to 46.5s over Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville.
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi managed to continue to hold onto third, increasing his margin over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans by 9.1s ahead of the rally ending Power Stage this afternoon.
Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen remained in fifth (+2m12.7s) but it was all change in the battle for sixth as Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta (+3m01.4s) snatched the position from M-Sport’s Pierre-Louis Loubet (+3m02.0s).
M-Sport’s Ott Tanak completed the Rally1 runners in eighth (+6m21.0s) following his five-minute engine change penalty on Thursday.
Holding a comfortable overnight lead after winning all nine stages on Saturday, Rovanpera could afford to back off on Sunday morning, but the Toyota driver had other ideas.
Although he claimed he wasn’t pushing, the Finn extended his consecutive stage winning streak to 10 in a row after winning stage 18 (Karaski, 12.04km), which featured damp gravel roads after heavy rain on Saturday night.
“That's our pace at the moment with no risks and I cannot be any slower than that to be honest,” said Rovanpera after eclipsing Lappi’s benchmark by 2.7s.
Lappi’s effort once again put the Finn in the box seat to claim the final podium. The Hyundai driver was 2.3s faster than the chasing Evans.
Source: Autosport