Rally Sweden 2024: day 2, Katsuta and Lappi fighting

The surprises continue at Rally Swedensecond test of Wrc 2024. After the double stop of Kalle Rovanpera and Ott Tanak on the streets of Floda, competing for success in the second day they are two “gregarious” like the Japanese Takamoto Katsuta and Finnish Esa-Pekka Lappi, second “full time” driver for Toyota and “part time” driver for Hyundai respectively. It was the latter who scored the coup on the second repeat of the Floda special, almost at the end of the day, overtaking Katsuta by one second and eight tenths and taking himself to the top. Really not bad for a driver who last season saw his prices drop fearfully after several bad crashes.

Rally Sweden 2024, EVANS AND NEUVILLE IN CRISIS

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By contrast, he leaves the podium area Elfyn Evans with the “flagship” Toyota GR Yaris Rally1. The Englishman does not seem to recover from the difficulties he has already suffered Montecarlo and on the Scandinavian specials perhaps it “pays” to have to leave first: at the end of the day the English son of art he was relegated from third to sixth overall. For Hyundai, Friday’s stage was a terrible one: after Ott Tanak’s crash, it was the turn of Thierry Neuville lose ground in the sixth stage at Norrby, due to the opening of the bonnet. The winner of Monte Carlo is thus even lower than tenth place overall.

wrc sweden: SOLBERG, THE BIG SURPRISE

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It wasn’t Evans who took over in provisional third place Adrien Fourmauxwho is also putting on a very solid performance with the Ford Puma Rally1 of M-Sport, but rather a Oliver Solberg in “Verstappen format”. Firmly at the top of the class Wrc 2, the young Swede overtook his rivals’ more powerful Rally1s, gaining a provisional position of absolute prestige. Of course, the delay compared to Lappi and Katsuta is more than a minute, but Solberg has the wonderful opportunity to enter the history of the World Rally Championship by becoming the first WRC 2 driver to achieve an overall podium. Another WRC 2 driver capable of rising to the top is the Estonian Georg Linnamae, who with the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 was able to reach fifth place, taking the luxury of overtaking Evans. The other Yaris Rally2s of Pajari, Heikkila and Korhonen are also riding high, occupying positions seventh to ninth in that order. A bit of glory also for Lauri Joona, a very private Finnish rider capable of entering the provisional absolute Top Ten by capitalizing on Neuville’s problems.

SO MANY EMOTIONS IN THE BACKGROUND

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Two other drivers in the Rally1 category did not take advantage of the problems of the “big” ones, namely Grégoire Munster and ours Lorenzo Bertelli. The former pays for the lack of experience on ice and “fights to survive” with his Ford Puma Rally1, finishing above twentieth position overall; the Italian is unable to unload the many horsepower of his Yaris and remains constantly around fifteenth place, with considerable gaps compared to many protagonists of Wrc 2. There is no shortage of fun in the other categories too. If Michal Solowow’s supremacy seems unchallenged in the WRC Masters Cup, the fight for victory in the Junior WRC is fiercer with Fabio Schwarz forced to give up ground to Mille Johansson and Romet Jurgenson. Among other things, supremacy in WRC 3 is now also at stake in light of the accident that forced former leader Jan Cerny to stop in the fifth special stage, hopefully only for today’s stage.

FOUNTAIN, INCREDIBLE PROGRESSION

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Already mentioned about Lorenzo Bertelli being all in all dignified and far from “excess competitiveness”, as far as the Italian patrol is concerned, the great progression of Matteo Fontana. Forty-sixth after the fourth special, the Peugeot 208 Rally4 driver has gained further ground and after Floda’s second pass he is actually thirty-third, ahead of the Wrc 2 protagonist Fabrizio Zaldivar which dropped “with a crash” after the illusory excellent time of the prologue. With regard to Oreste Milaniwe will have to wait until tomorrow to see his Ford Fiesta in action again, with the hope that this time everything will go smoothly.

SEVEN TESTS ALSO ON SATURDAY

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We will start again very early on February 17th too: at seven forty-five pm Italian time the ninth special stage will begin with the first pass by Vannas. There will also be seven stages to tackle on Saturday, with an epilogue once again at nineteen and five minutes in Italy in Umea with the “appetizer” of the Sunday Power Stage.