As heavy fog closed in on Saturday’s penultimate stage, Rossel’s day-long charge was halted when he was caught behind championship leader Oliver Solberg after the latter stopped to change a wheel on his Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo.
At a hearing on Saturday evening at the rally’s base in Concepción, the stewards were satisfied with the evidence at hand to agree to update Rossel’s time to 17min 02.5sec – 40sec quicker than the time he was previously given.
It was enough to move the Frenchman into the overnight lead, 21.6sec clear of team-mate Nikolay Gryazin and 38.4sec clear of Gus Greensmith.
The tyre change had significant implications for Swede Solberg who dropped from first to fifth, dealing his hopes of wrapping up the WRC2 championship this weekend a major blow.
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