WRC 2
History beckons for Rossel following wild WRC2 Saturday in Croatia
Yohan Rossel is on the cusp of earning an historic maiden WRC2 victory for Lancia, building a lead of more than one minute by mastering wildly variable conditions throughout Saturday at Croatia Rally.
On a day of agony for almost all his rivals, Rossel produced a masterful performance in his Ypsilon HF Rally2, picking up early stage wins before backing off as conditions worsened to maintain and ultimately grow his lead as his closest rivals faltered.
Among those most impacted on the most challenging day of asphalt rallying in recent memory were his team-mate Nikolay Gryazin, and Alejandro Cachón, who had begun the day in second and third respectively.
Léo Rossel sat one place behind brother Yohan following Saturday WRC action
© At World
Gryazin dropped from second to fourth when he arrived at the end of the second pass of Generalski Stol – Zhihovo with a turbocharger issue whilst Cachón picked up a puncture on his Toyota Yaris GR Rally2 on the same test, having already dropped 29.1sec to the leaders on the first pass of the stage.
Gryazin’s issue was fixed on the road section with the Bulgarian biting back immediately on the next stage to set the quickest time and remain just 13sec off a podium position going into Sunday.
The main benefactor of the pair’s demise was Rossel’s brother Léo. Piloting a Citroën C3 Rally2, the younger of the Rossel brothers showed similar temperament to his older sibling, avoiding unnecessary risks to move to second overall, 15.5sec clear of third-placed Roope Korhonen.
Roope Korhonen avoided incident on Saturday to move into third in WRC2
© At World
Despite his frustrating day, Cachón still managed to return to overnight service in fifth almost a minute clear of Roberto Daprà’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 with the Italian also picking up punctures, as did sixth-placed Emil Lindholm in an identical Fabia.
Saturday’s biggest climber was Australian Taylor Gill. Assisted by a stage win, the 2025 Junior WRC runner-up moved from 13th to 8th whilst Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Romet Jürgenson rounded out the top-10.
Frenchmen Eric Camilli and Arthur Pelamourgues both had Saturdays to forget. Pelamourgues' day came to an end when he went off on SS14 whilst Camili experienced a similar fate a stage later, spinning and hitting a bank leading to heavy rear-end damage.
13th overall in WRC2, Austrian Johannes Keferböck held onto the WRC Masters Cup lead, with a gap of more than six minutes over second-placed Ugur Soylu.
