Young Finnish driver Kalle Rovanpera retained the lead of the Rally of Croatia on Saturday morning but the Estonian Ott Tanak closed the space to simply over 16 seconds.

Rovanpera, 21, ended Friday over a minute beforehand of Thierry Neuville but both drivers suffered setbacks to allow Tanak, the 2019 international champion, to release his rate.

Rovanpera was on the protecting all morning and while his Toyota suffered a puncture at the 11th degree, the penultimate of the consultation, he dropped almost 55sec to Tanak, who took the win.

After the morning’s four stages, Rovanpera led Tanak in a Hyundai by 16.8sec, with Craig Breen in a Ford third at 57.8sec.

“You have to be lucky with punctures in a rally like this,” said Rovanpera. “And you also have to score big points on Sunday,” he added, hinting at increased caution on Saturday afternoon.

Neuville took the final stage of the morning as he fought to regain the time he had lost as a punishment the previous evening.

The Belgian driver had been second-fastest overall in Friday’s eight stages but was also too quick on public roads between stages. He was penalized a minute which dropped him to fourth overall, 2min 4sec behind leader Kalle Rovanpera in a Toyota.

Neuville became first fined 1,900 euros for hitting 156kph in an 80kph area as he raced toward the rally provider place in Zagreb after his Hyundai stopped with alternator problems.

Late on Friday, stewards additionally introduced a minute to the Belgian’s basic time after gaining knowledge that the auto’s monitoring tool showed a string of excessive dashing infringements over 11 km of the avenue.

Neuville started his mechanical hassle and intended he was “obliged to Overspeed”, the WRC website online mentioned, even though he knew he was breaking site visitors’ laws, He stated he had now not endangered anybody, due to the fact the street was abandoned.

Saturday’s first stage, the ninth of the rally, changed into neutralized after Olivier Solberg crashed his Hyundai.

Neither Solberg nor his co-driving force Elliott Edmondson becomes hurt.