Ott Tanak, who led Rally Sweden after Thursday’s opening stage, was left furious on Friday morning with the rally organisers’ job of ploughing the snow before the World Rally Championship drivers came through.
Tanak extended his lead in the opening test, with a dominant stage victory over the Hyundai of Andreas Mikkelsen.
He lost the lead to Mikkelsen’s team-mate Thierry Neuville on the next stage, suffering from running second on the road.
Tanak lost the most time on the third and final stage of the morning. He was furious with the lack of snow ploughing and claimed the Junior WRC drivers would be quicker through the final section in their R2 cars.
“What can I say? The organisers can screw themselves,” Tanak raged after completing the fourth stage of the rally.
“The last 6kms there was no snow ploughing and we were pushing the snow with the front bumper. The R2 cars will be faster than us there.
“It’s really tough. No plough for the last six kilometres. It was already unfair to be first on the road here”
Tanak now sits seventh overall, behind both of his Toyota team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Esapekka Lappi.
He’s just under 20 seconds adrift of rally leader Neuville, with four more stages to run on Friday after the service break.
At service, Tanak said “There was a lot more snow, and I guess they were playing to help the local drivers, wanted us to lose time – and we lost a lot.
“Not so nice, but that’s life. A conspiracy? I don’t know, but it was never clean for us.
“I’m sure R2 cars would be faster in that section. It wasn’t handled in a good way but that’s how it is.”
