Among the truck drivers, however, Martin Macík had the best start to the stage, reaching the first checkpoint at km 38 in 24 minutes. Second Loprais lost 26 seconds. Already in the second interval, however, the order behind Macík began to change. Dutchman Janus van Kasteren moved up to second with an eight second gap, Loprais dropped to fourth with a loss of nearly two minutes. However, he improved in the virtual battle with Martin van den Brink for the overall lead, as the Dutch driver gained more than four minutes.
Macík whistled through the third checkpoint as fastest, but lost before the fourth waypoint at the 196th kilometer and gained more than five minutes on the faster Van Kasteren. Loprais moved past Macík into second position with a loss of 3:38 min. He then maintained a three-minute gap to the Dutchman the rest of the way, while Macík’s defeat escalated to thirteen minutes at the fifth junction.
After finishing sixth on Friday, Loprais initially relinquished the overall lead with a loss of 37 seconds to Martin van den Brink. But he was soon handed a one-minute penalty, and the Czech driver fought his way to the points lead once again, and will defend a 23 second lead over the Dutchman on Saturday.
In the category of the most followed cars worldwide, Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka moved up to eighth place on Friday, but only a minute separates the Czech crew from the top three. at the same time, Prokop also has the legendary Sébastien Loeb or Giniel de Villiers at hand.
On Saturday, motorcyclists and four-wheelers have an unexpected rest day. Due to the bad weather on Friday and the late arrival of many participants at the bivouac, the organizers have canceled the Saturday program for these categories, and therefore the competitors will start moving on the asphalt directly to the bivouac during the morning. The others await the 333 km of the special stage and a total of 861 km in the so-called marathon stage, which does not provide assistance from the mechanics before continuing on Sunday.
