Key Highlights from the WRC Rally Japan 2023
In a special stage that saw improved performance compared to earlier, the gaps in results were less pronounced.
For the third time since the start, Elfyn Evans set the fastest time, slightly increasing his lead over teammates Oliver Solberg and Sébastien Ogier, who remained in the mid-field after a more challenging section.
Thierry Neuville continued to struggle with hard tires, falling behind Sami Pajari for third place, while Takamoto Katsuta could also overtake the Belgian in the coming kilometers.
In WRC2, the intense battle between Alejandro Cachon and Nikolay Gryazin persisted. The Russian took the lead again with a better time, narrowing the gap to just 1 second.
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On the first pass, Elfyn Evans set the fastest time of 19:00.2. Katsuta used 2 hard and 2 soft tires, while other favorites used 4 hard tires.