Tänak claims back-to-back win in Ypres Rally

The Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT driver Ott Tänak stormed to Ypres Rally Belgium victory on the Sunday afternoon and claimed the back-to-back win by passing his teammate Thierry Neuville on the penultimate day as the Belgian home hero steered his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car into a ditch.

Tänak who won the previous round at Secto Rally Finland in August, had a 8.2 seconds lead over Elfyn Evans, who pilots a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 for the Japanese team Toyota Gazoo Racing, as they were heading in to the final leg of the rally around the Flanders region. Evans was not willing to give up without a fight and the Welshman took two fastest times on the two opening stages but it wasn´t enough to take snatch the win, he ended up with 5 seconds behind Tänak at the end of the power stage.

The success in Belgium means now the Estonian is closing in on the current championship leader Kalle Rovanperä, who had been going off on an opening day but later re-joined the rally on Saturday, with 72 points splitting the two drivers apart. However, Tänak did lose out value championship points when Rovanperä took home the five extra points from being the fastest on the power stage.

Evans´ teammate Esapekka Lappi bringed his Yaris home to a third place, making a double podium for Toyota, he trailed Evans with 1 minutes and 36.6 seconds but had a massive advantage over the fourth place finisher, the Hyundai´s Oliver Solberg by 1 minute and 46.9 seconds.

Solberg had a tight fight with the M-Sport´s Adrien Fourmaux but the Puma driver crashed out in the penultimate stage which resulted in a did not finish and handed the fifth place to Toyota´s rising star Takamoto Katsuta. Rounding up the top 10 were a couple of WRC2 drivers with Stéphane Lefebvre leading the charge ahead of the current championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen.