Mārtiņš Sesks will start Rally Saudi Arabia's decisive Saturday in the lead after a late time penalty dropped Adrien Fourmaux from first to fourth following a brutal Friday that also left the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship title balanced on a single point.
On the road, Fourmaux had ended SS14 with a narrow 2.4sec cushion over Sesks and just 5.8sec in hand over Thierry Neuville after a leg in which the lead changed hands several times. But the Hyundai driver and co-driver Alex Coria checked in one minute early to TC14A, the technical zone prior to overnight service, incurring a 60sec time penalty.
The adjustment promotes Sesks into top spot ahead of Neuville and Takamoto Katsuta, with Fourmaux now 57.6sec off the front in fourth.
It capped a day of relentless drama. Fourmaux began the morning with a 6.0sec buffer and saw it trimmed to 2.9sec across the opening loop before the afternoon erupted on the second pass of Um Al Jerem. M-Sport Ford hotshot Sesks delivered a stunning eight-second stage win to grab the rally lead, only for his charge to be checked on Wadi Almatwi when a rear-left deflation forced him to nurse the car to the finish on the rim, losing close to a minute.
Fourmaux also hit trouble, a front-left deflation forcing him to back off, but he kept his i20 N Rally1 rolling and initially moved back in front by the slenderest of margins before the time penalty reversed their positions.
"It's been crazy," Fourmaux said before news of the penalty. "Every time we lose the lead, it comes back again. There are rocks everywhere. We're just managing the risk and carrying on."
The chaos stretched far beyond the fight between the pair. Earlier in the loop, both Sami Pajari and Ott Tänak - who had been locked inside the podium battle - were forced to stop and change wheels on the 30.58km Um Al Jerem. Pajari tumbled from third to seventh, while Tänak fell from fifth to outside the top 10. Their delays opened the door for Neuville and Katsuta, both of whom survived tyre scares of their own to climb into what is now the overnight podium behind Sesks.
But the deeper narrative remained centred on the title fight. Elfyn Evans' hopes of securing a maiden championship took a major blow when he stopped on SS11 to change a puncture, losing more than 90sec and ending the day eighth.
His Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Sébastien Ogier - who began the rally three points behind - had been edging into a position of relative control until a rear-right deflation in the closing kilometres of SS14 cost him fifth to Kalle Rovanperä by just 0.2sec. Even so, the Frenchman holds a provisional one-point championship lead with up to 10 final-day and Wolf Power Stage points still available.
"There was nothing we could do," Ogier shrugged. "It's pure lottery out there."
Rovanperä, who ended the day with a stage win, climbed into fifth ahead of Ogier, while Pajari recovered to seventh after his earlier delay. Evans sits eighth, with Grégoire Munster and Oliver Solberg completing a bruising top 10.
End of day three (Friday):
1 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) 2h43m20.1s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3.4s
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +41.5s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +57.6s
5 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m12.6s
6 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m12.8s
7 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m34.8s
8 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +3m52.6s
9 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +6m13.4s
10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7m26.7s
(Results as of 19:30 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
The final day of the season is formed by 65.86 competitive kilometres to be driven across three stages. It includes the longest stage of the rally – Asfan, at 33.28 kilometres – which separates two passes of Thahban. The second pass serves as the season-ending Power Stage, offering up to five potentially decisive bonus points, as does the separate Super Saturday classification.
