The Toyota driver excelled in challenging wet conditions to set fastest times on four of Friday’s six stages to open up a 36.4s lead over Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville.
Elfyn Evans climbed from eighth to second through the day but lost ground on the day’s final stage to fall behind Neuville, 47.2s adrift of the leader. Evans needs to outscore Rovanpera in this weekend’s three-country rally to deny his team-mate a second world title.
M-Sport’s Ott Tanak managed to survive the tricky conditions to occupy fourth (+1m30.4s) ahead of Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta, who completed a solid drive.
Eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier recovered to sixth, 2m35.9s behind Rovanpera, after losing almost a minute to a tyre issue on the day’s first stage. Teemu Suninen and Gregoire Munster filled seventh and eighth positions.
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi retired from third after a huge crash in stage five, from which both driver and co-driver Janne Ferm emerged unscathed.
After clean sweeping the morning stages, Rovanpera’s run of stage wins came to halt on stage six (Vlachovo Březí 2, 13.66km). Despite the weather clearing, the Finn’s pass was some eight seconds slower than the morning run due the wet and muddy road conditions.
“It's definitely quite tricky,” said Rovanpera. “Even though the weather is drying up the stages are really dirty. I hope this one was the worst of the loop.”
Source: Autosport