Slim advantage to Ta¨nak at end of first full day of Rally NZ

Ott Ta¨nak held a minuscule lead over Elfyn Evans at the end of yesterday’s stages at Rally New Zealand, where the drivers not only had to battle tricky roads but also changeable conditions.

With seven of the 17 stages gone, the Estonian has a 0.2 seconds advantage over the Welshman, while Sebastien Ogier is third, 6.7sec behind and Kalle Rovanpera¨ is just a further half a second back.

Realistically, these are the only four drivers who can win Rally NZ from here, although the atrocious weather forecast for today will make it a day of attrition.

Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon hasn’t really had to deal with much in the way of competition in the WRC2 category and has a 61-second lead over Poland’s Kajetan Kajetanowicz, even though he wasn’t pushing his Hyundai i20N to the limit.

‘‘We’ve got a bad tyre on the right rear and a bad tyre on the left front, so I’m really managing it,’’ Paddon said at the end of the day.

‘‘It makes it interesting, because sometimes it snaps when you don’t expect it, so you’ve really got to pull yourself back and stay on the line.

‘‘All in all, a good day. Even though we’re not taking risks, we still had to work for it today because the conditions have been pretty tough.’’

The forecast had been for the rain to stay away for most of yesterday but the weather gods clearly never heard that as there was already drizzle when Rovanpera¨ opened the Whaanga Coast stage at 8.30am.

That was slightly good news for the championship leader as wet roads meant less sweeping from him as the gravel would become compact, but there were parts of nearly all the stages that were wet and dry.

Gus Greensmith won the opening stage, 0.4sec ahead of eight time world champion Ogier.

Towards the end of the second stage of the day, Thierry Neuville hit a bank, but was fortunate not to damage his Hyundai.

‘‘Just a spin, just before the end. Four corners before the finish,’’ the Belgian said at the end of the stage.

‘‘There was a bump with some water and the rear spun around. The engine stalled and in the time to restart I lost maybe 10 to 15 seconds.’’

Shortly afterwards Takamoto Katsuta from Japan had a similar problem at the same corner.

Evans won the Te Akau South 1 stage, but Craig Breen held a 1.3sec lead over Ta¨nak in the overall standings.

Special stage 4, Te Akau North 1, was won by Ta¨nak, which put him into the lead of the rally overall, with the Estonian 2.6sec ahead of both Breen and Evans.

Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen had a spin early on SS4 but there were still plenty of smiles from the Supercars champion.

On the second run through Whaanga Coast, Breen, who seems to make a habit of having unfortunate incidents, overshot a tight right turn and went down a steep bank.

The Irishman encouraged a group of spectators to grab hold of a rope to pull the stricken Ford Puma back onto the road.

The big mover on the stage was Ogier, who moved from fifth to first in the standings.

However, the veteran Frenchman lost his rear spoiler on the penultimate stage of the day, clipping a tree.

That stage was won by Rovanpera¨, while van Gisbergen was second quickest in WRC2.

‘‘That was epic,’’ van Gisbergen said at the end of that stage.

‘‘It was very hard to read, I’m learning as I go with the mixed conditions, but it’s been so much fun.’’