Tanäk wins fiercely battled rally Sweden

The rally started on Thursday with the 10km super special starting in the Ümea forest and heading into the stadium section 10km away from the heart of Ümea Rövenpera lead but the real test came the next day and on one of the first stages of the day Elfyn Evans barely surviving a hit with a snow bank and Craig Breen fastest on both Brattby tests and snatching the overall lead from Ött Tanäk who was fast out of the gates Breen quoted at the end of Brattby 2 "I should be the mayor of Brattby” he was loving it and said that the car was on rails. A bit further back Takamoto Katsuta was about to find out how hard the snowbanks of Sweden can bite when his Toyota Yaris caught one and rolled. He continued on but the damage too much to complete the day. World champion Kalle Rövenpera was fastest on stages 3 and 8 and before the start of stage 9 he got a message “Traction has left the chat” he finished the day in 5th just behind Toyota teammate Elfyn Evans and challenging Craig Breen in second was Ött Tanäk just 2.6 behind the Waterford man. Day 3 was going to be very challenging as minding tires in the afternoon would be tricky. On Ss12 Elfyn Evans again fell foul to the Swedish snow banks catching one and it spinning him around he lost 20 seconds. Thierry Neuville was on full attack and won 4 stages he went from 6th to 3rd partly due to Evans and also Rovenpera making mistakes with him spinning and losing more than 10 seconds Esapeka Lappi overcorrected a massive slide on the final corner of stage 13 he was stuck for nearly 8 minutes and 3rd place was gone. Craig Breen was on his usual pace through the stage until the final 2 sectors where Breens times dropped and at the stop control things became evident Breen had a front left puncture he luckily only dropped 1.2 seconds to Ött and as night fell for the Last two tests both Breen and Tanäk made roadside adjustments but on the second last stage of the day Ött got a puncture and ran wide on a corner near the end but managed to claim the lead from Breen and things didn't get better for Breen when he lost some time on the Ümea stage. Overnight going into the final day Tanäk led by 8.6 seconds over Breen and third was Thierry Neuville. Overnight thought the new Hyundai Team Principal Cyril Abiteaboul ordered that Breen give the 2nd place to Neuville by purposely checking in to a time control late and so that meant Neuville inherited 2nd by 0.5 of a second while Breen was still under attack from Rövenpera into the final stage went Neuville and pushing to get power stage points he braked too late for a corner and slid wide and with Breen into the stage and only 0.5 the gap Breen reclaimed his 2nd unknowingly Abiteaboul was furious and Breen was left confused. They even went to the wrong places on the podium. But overall Tanäk won the rally and in the championship he leads that win a special one for Ött and M-sport his first win and M-sports first win in over 365 days. In Wrc-2 Oliver solberg dominated from start to finish.