\u00a0<\/p>\n
Esapekka Lappi\u2019s pursuit of a second FIA World Rally Championship victory remains on track after the Finn completed Saturday loop of three stages leading Rally Sweden by almost 90 seconds.<\/strong><\/p>\n KBC TV is showing live the in progress Rally of Sweden.<\/p>\n Out in front on his first start of 2024 following Friday\u2019s dramatic opening leg, the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid driver had been in a close fight with Toyota\u2019s Takamoto Katsuta. But when Katsuta crashed out on today\u2019s second stage, Lappi was left in the clear.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, it is harder [mentally now],\u201d the Finn admitted when asked about his approach given his 1min 24.3sec advantage. \u201cI was over-safe, but I don\u2019t know what else I should do, to be honest. The time is what it is. We are not touching the banks. The last kilometres [of SS11] were really messy with no grip at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Following his Friday heroics, Katsuta began leg two 3.2sec behind Lappi. He narrowed that gap to 0.9sec with a determined charge through Saturday\u2019s first test, the 15.65km run of V\u00e4nn\u00e4s. But his hopes of a maiden WRC victory were dashed when the Japanese plunged his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid into a snowbank 3.4km from the start of SS10 while pressing Lappi for the lead. Despite their efforts to dig their car out of the snow, Katsuta and co-driver Aaron Johnston were forced to retire for the day.<\/p>\n After demoting WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg in the battle for third on SS9, Adrien Fourmaux moved into second when Katsuta stopped on the next stage. The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team driver then underlined his potential by landing his fourth WRC career stage win on SS11 to cement second place in the overall order.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure, I had a really good stage,\u201d Fourmaux said after winning SS11 in his Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid. \u201cWe changed a little bit the set-up before that one and found something really good. There was more cleaning on that stage, which helped us also, but to be fair, I\u2019m quite happy with my pace on that one. It could be my first podium [this weekend], so we need to stay on the road now.\u201d<\/p>\n Having been hampered by opening the road for much of Friday afternoon\u2019s loop, Elfyn Evans missed out on winning SS9 by 0.3sec before his third-fastest time on SS10 elevated him onto the final step of the provisional podium, 11.4sec behind Fourmaux. But after the Toyota driver \u201cscooped a snowbank on the inside of a corner\u201d and \u201clost loads of power\u201d as a result, he headed back to midday service 16.2sec behind the flying Frenchman.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Rally of Sweden: Katsuta out, Lappi in the clear<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Esapekka Lappi\u2019s pursuit of a second FIA World Rally Championship victory remains on track after the Finn completed Saturday loop of three stages leading Rally Sweden by almost 90 seconds. KBC TV is showing live the in progress Rally of Sweden. Out in front on his first start of 2024 following Friday\u2019s dramatic opening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}