After yesterday's tense and tie finish, Thierry Neuville still has an advantage of 4,7 seconds ahead of the second-placed Elfyn Evans after the morning loop. Sébastien Ogier still holds third place, 6,6 seconds behind Evans.
A right rear tyre swap following the incident on the third stage put Ogier at a disadvantage, the wet weather rubber mismatched with two soft and one hard dry tyre causing snap oversteer on left-hand bends. „I had another one which was losing the tread like usual so I didn’t want it to take the risk to get a puncture here. It was maybe not performance for sure in there but we are there”, said Ogier.
Ott Tänak is 40,9 seconds behind Ogier in the overall standings, although he had the same time as Evans on the last special stage. Evans wasn't completely satisfied after the last special stage though. „Really slippery. I wasn’t so happy with my run to be honest, killing the speed a little bit but no mistakes”, said last year's Croatia Rally winner.
Nikolay Gryazin and co-driver Konstantin Aleksandrov lead WRC2 by 59,9 seconds in the Citroën C3 Rally2. Yohan Rossel and co-driver Arnaud Dunand are second in the order after a total of 12 speed tests, and behind them, Pepe López and David Vázquez are in third place.
„Each year it’s slippery this stage, so we knew it was going to be slippery so we just need to be on the not-over-pushing side. Interesting stage: so easy to make the mistakes, some unexpected cuts in some places, but let’s see. I am curious about the second loop because I don’t know what the weather is going to be. It’s just half of the race so not time to relax at all“, said leader Gryazin.
In the JWRC category, the fastest are Romet Jürgenson and Siim Oja in Ford Fiesta Rally3 with a 1:56,0s advantage, and behind them are currently Taylor Gill and Daniel Brkic in the same car. Croatian duo Viliam Prodan and Marko Stiperski are 31st in the overall standings.
Morning loop was driven through two counties, Zagrebačka and Karlovačka, more precisely on the Smerovišće - Grdnjaci, Stojdraga - Gornja Vas, Vinski Vrh - Duga Resa and Pećurkovo Brdo - Mrežnički Novaki special stages. After the meeting at Westgate City and a short break, the second part of the day takes another four special stages.
