Jan Kopecky now leads a Skoda 1-2-3 in the Rally Islas Canarias after Kris Meeke dropped from first to sixth, having sustained a punctured tire.
Meeke was pulling away from the field this afternoon until the puncture cost him 1m45sec on the 29.9-kilometer Ingenio stage. The Peugeot UK driver suspected that a setup issue rather than an impact had caused the puncture, and reckoned it could have been an issue the team had already suffered on a previous rally and had believed it had rectified.
With Meeke delayed, Kopecky was able to move into a 13.4sec lead over his factory Skoda teammate Juho Hanninen, who he had pulled clear of by winning Ingenio, which turned out to be the final stage of the leg as SS9 was canceled due to spectator overcrowding.
Guy Wilks is up to third for Skoda UK – and feeling much more confident after further setup changes – with Bruno Magalhaes now Peugeot's lead runner in fourth, ahead of Alberto Hevia and Meeke.
There were more dramas farther back, as both Meeke's new teammate Thierry Neuville and Interwetten Peugeot driver Franz Wittmann also picked up punctures. That put Spanish champion Sergio Vallejo into seventh, despite receiving a two-minute penalty for being late out of service following transmission attention to his Ford.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap
1. Jan Kopecky Skoda 1h20m25.0s
2. Juho Hanninen Skoda + 13.4s
3. Guy Wilks Skoda + 31.4s
4. Bruno Magalhaes Peugeot + 49.3s
5. Alberto Hevia Skoda + 1m17.4s
6. Kris Meeke Peugeot + 1m28.0s
7. Sergio Vallejo Ford + 3m35.6s
8. Thierry Neuville Peugeot + 3m40.9s
9. Ruben Gracia Mitsubishi + 5m51.5s
10. Jose Suarez Mitsubishi + 5m55.8s