Ardeca Ypres Rally Belgium 2022 – after SS 18

It's not over!

The third and last day of the Ardeca Ypres Rally Belgium started with a first run on the Watou and Kemmelberg stages. There may be important and intense battles in progress, but there have been no notable events during this 25 km loop, which has undergone few changes at the front.

The major attention is, of course, focused on the duel between the Hyundai i20 N of Ott Tänak and the Toyota GR Yaris of Elfyn Evans for the victory. The Welshman may have been flawless this morning by appropriating the best times on the two stages of the first loop, but he only brought back 1.5 seconds on his competitor. At this rate, it will be too much to overhaul. We will have to see how the last two stages go.

A little behind, Adrien Fourmaux (Ford) continues his hunt for Oliver Solberg (Hyundai). As for the leading duo, the speed at which the gap is being absorbed should not allow the Frenchman to overtake the young Norwegian, who conceded only 4.2 seconds this morning. The gap with two stages to go stands at 10.1 seconds.

In WRC2, as yesterday, Lefebvre (Citroën) took a while to fully wake up as he conceded 6.6 to Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda), before taking the stage win on Kemmelberg. However, he still has enough of a lead to calmly manage his end of the race. With over 20 seconds in hand, Lefebvre is in the prime seat. On the other hand, Grégoire Munster (Hyundai) had a tyre issue and could not do anything to contain the strong return of Chris Ingram (Skoda). They left this morning with a deficit of 10.6 second gap in favour of the Hyundai driver while Ingram now enjoys an advantage of 6.7 seconds.

As we can see, everything remains possible on many levels. If Ypres wants to stay true to its tradition, the end of the rally could produce some surprises... We wait & see!

Racing Facts

Watou 1

• Breen / Evans / Neuville: Perfectly equal at the first split -  2:05.2 at 4.3km;
• Evans' stage win, lies 7.1 from Tänak;
• WRC2: Lefebvre loses 6.6 to Mikkelsen; he has 19.1 seconds in hand in the overall. Ingram takes over 10 seconds from Munster and lies just 0.1 behind.

Kemmelberg 1

• Elevation gain, cobblestone, highest point of the rally (Kemmel) ... Very nice special that will also be the theater of the Power Stage;
• 2 out of 2 stage wins for Evans;
• Tänak seems to be managing his lead (6.7);
• Fourmaux: takes only 0.2 in Solberg and remains at 10 sec between them in the general standings;
• WRC2: Lefebvre takes 0.1 out of Mikkelsen.

Retirements

Rovanperä: SS2 (crash)

Breen: SS10 (crash)

Neuville: SS15 (crash)

Stage winners

Neuville: 8; Tänak and Evans: 4.; Rovanperä: 2.

Rally leaders

SS1: Rovanperä; SS2-6: Evans; SS7 & 14: Neuville;  SS 15 & 18: Tänak.