Takamoto KATSUTA wins the stage by 1.3s over Elfyn EVANS. Katsuta moves into the rally lead by 0.5s over Sébastien OGIER. Kalle ROVANPERÄ clipped an armco barrier and damaged the left rear suspension, dropped down 2m22.6s. He attempted to strap it together on the road section after the stage and head to stage four.
Joshua MCERLEAN went off the road at 8.9km, but the crew were uninjured. Retired with heavy damage to the front and rear.
Elfyn EVANS
“I wasn’t sure. The grip was quite mixed in therem it was damp under the trees so I don’t know I could be more brave but let’s see how the others do.”
Kalle ROVANPERÄ
“One quite high speed narrow place I just came too fast and I don’t know if the note was wrong and I think I need to check. It was probably a bit too optimistic a note and we went a bit wide. We will see [if we can repair it]
Ott TÄNAK
“Conditions are very nice and very high grip. It was really clean.”
Thierry NEUVILLE
“All good. It is tough.”
Takamoto KATSUTA
“That’s good we changed a few things on the car. Thanks to my engineer it is so much easier to drive now. There are a few places where there is some pollution coming from the inside of the corners which is tricky. I just keep like this and I see what we can do.”
Adrien FOURMAUX
“It was a cleaner stage than the previous one so it was easier to be closer to the fastest guy. We changed a little bit something on the car and it seems to be ok and working in some conditions. I will see if I go even more in that direction but for the rest I had a really good clean stage and I was optimising things. I’m really happy with my driving. We seem to be struggling a bit on the dirtier places.”
Sami PAJARI
It was quite fine. I wasn’t expecting such a good time actually. Ilm trying to be smooth like you should be on tarmac but I would like to get a bit more of a pushing feeling. It feels really safe and really under control. We ned to keep pushing.”
Grégoire MUNSTER
“It was less damp and humid than I thought. You are trying to carry speed and momentum and the car is not always doing what you want so it is difficult to find the sweet spot because it is never really going your way, just one percent too much and you go off like Josh. Sorry for them, I know they are just trying.”
Oliver SOLBERG
“I’m still struggling with the feeling of the hard tyres. I think the hard tyre is the correct choice but there are a lot of different conditions everywhere and I didn’t trust the pace notes in some places. Not good.”
