Twenty-year-old Rovanperä, who led after Thursday night’s short curtain-raising speed test, won three of the four fast and furious gravel special stages in his Toyota Yaris.
Breen was hot on the Finn’s heels in a Hyundai i20. The Irishman was second on all four stages to lie just 4.8sec adrift as this seventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship paused for breath at mid-leg service in Tartu.
“With the soft tyre it was quite more trickier in the last ones, because it’s really hot and the grip is changing much more,” explained Rovanperä. “It’s a proper fight – really small gaps, all the time flat-out, and if you do a small mistake you see it in the times straight away.”
his seventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship paused for breath at mid-leg service in Tartu.t 4.8sec adrift as t
“With the soft tyre it was quite more trickier in the last ones, because it’s really hot and the grip is changing much more,” explained Rovanperä. “It’s a proper fight – really small gaps, all the time flat-out, and if you do a small mistake you see it in the times straight away.”
In temperatures approaching 30°C, Breen kept cool after twice being inadvertently delayed by a struggling Gus Greensmith. The time lost was later removed by rally officials and Breen briefly sneaked into a one second lead before Rovanperä hit back in the final two tests.
Home hero Tänak won Friday’s opening Arula test to relegate Rovanperä from top spot but plunged to seventh after a front right puncture in the following Otepää. Worse was to follow in the next Kanepi stage.
“I went wide in a corner and basically I went on the field and during that I knocked off two tyres. I had another two punctures and obviously we had no spares anymore and it was not possible to continue,” explained Tänak, who began the loop with just one spare wheel.
Championship leader Sébastien Ogier was best of the rest. The Frenchman was 33.5sec adrift in third in his Yaris, but content after minimising the handicap of opening the soft and sandy roads, with grip for the early starters reduced compared to those further back.
Craig Breen kept the pressure on leader Kalle Rovanperä all morning
Ogier had 6.8sec in hand over Thierry Neuville’s i20 in fourth. The Belgian fell back from third with a rear left puncture in Kanepi, but still had 6.6sec in hand over Elfyn Evans, who twice overshot junctions in Otepää in his Yaris.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the final top-flight driver in sixth. The Corsican was cautious after a torrid opening half of the season in his i20, but capitalised on the problems of others.
Takamoto Katsuta retired his Yaris from third after co-driver Dan Barritt suffered a back injury after a heavy landing over a Kanepi jump. Greensmith exited after stopping several times with a technical issue which affected the power from his Ford Fiesta’s engine.
Team-mate Teemu Suninen was sixth but a rear left puncture and a turbo boost problem demoted the Finn to 14th.
WRC3 leader and reigning European champion Alexey Lukyanuk held seventh in a Skoda Fabia, 11.1sec ahead of WRC2 pace-setter Mads Østberg, who was hampered by a damaged suspension arm after a jump. Andreas Mikkelsen and Emil Lindholm completed the leaderboard.
SS7: ROVANPERÄ UNTOUCHABLE
- SS7 is complete here at Rally Estonia.
- Kalle Rovanperä continued to dominate the timesheets with the stage win on Otepää 2.
- The Finn was 1.7sec quicker than the Hyundai i20 of Craig Breen, who struggled with confidence in the narrow final section of the stage.
- Rovanperä’s advantage is now up to 7.9sec with two stages left to complete on Friday.
STANDINGS AFTER SS7 /24:
| POS. | DRIVER | TIME | |
| 1. | Rovanperä |  |
49min 25.3sec |
| 2. | Breen |  |
+7.9sec |
| 3. | Ogier | |
+42.7sec |
| 4. | Neuville | |
+45.6sec |
| 5. | Evans | |
+58.5sec |
| 6. | Loubet | |
+2min 14.1sec |