Solvers have put the peddle to the metal, speeding through the fourth round of the Sudoku Grand Prix from the World Puzzle Federation (WPF), with Estonia’s Tiit Vunk taking the checkered flag.

Vunk took first place with a commanding lead of 43.3 point lead ahead of his closest scoring competitor Timothy Doyle of France. Vunk completed each of the round’s 12 puzzles without error in 58:01, the fastest solve time of the top challengers. Doyle went on to amass 876.5 points in 1:02:21.

Bastien Vial-Jaime of France came back with a strong showing, taking third, after having a ninth place outing in the previous round of the Grand Prix. Vial-Jaime earned 873 points with a final time of 1:02:42.

Each of the round’s 12 Sudoku were constructed by Poland’s Jan Mrozowski, a regular competitor seen on the puzzle tournament scene. Puzzles in the consisted of five traditional Sudoku and Between Sudoku, Diagonal Sudoku, Irregular Sudoku, No Touch Sudoku, Roman Numeral Sudoku, Sukaku, and Windoku variants.

Top 10 Finishers For Round 4

1. Tiit Vunk – Estonia
2. Timothy Doyle – France
3. Bastien Vial-Jaime – France
4. Rishi Puri – India
5. Jakub Ondroušek – Czech Republic
6. Daisuke TAKEI – Japan
7. Seungjae Kwak – South Korea
8. Jan Novotný – Czech Republic
9. Keisui Okuma – Japan
10. Sinchai Rungsangrattanakul – Thailand

Vunk holds the top spot in the overall standing, having taken either the first or third place positions in each of the Sudoku Grand Prix rounds, averaging 931.55 points per round. Vunk is currently ahead of second place holder Ondroušek by a slim edge of 9.02 points, and has put himself almost 40 points in front of third place holder Vial-Jaime.

Only the top six scores will count toward each challenger’s final total, but even now Vunk is beginning to establish himself as the dominate solver of this year’s Sudoku Grand Prix.

Vunk won last 2014’s Sudoku Grand Prix, having gone on to the offline finals in London, to win with a final total of 572.9 points.

Current Grand Prix Top 10

1. Tiit Vunk – Estonia
2. Jakub Ondroušek – Czech Republic
3. Bastien Vial-Jaime – France
4. Timothy Doyle – France
5. Kota Morinishi – Japan
6. Seungjae Kwak – South Korea
7. Vincent Bertrand – Belgium
8. Hideaki Jo – Japan
9. Sinchai Rungsangrattanakul – Thailand
10. Rohan Rao – India

The next stage of the Sudoku Grand Prix moves on to Serbia, who also recently hosted the first round of the WPF’s Puzzle Grand Prix. Hosting duties solely involve the hosting country providing the puzzles for their stage of the event, and Branko Ceranic, Cedomir Milanovic, Zoran Tanasic, and Nikola Zivanovic of the Serbian puzzle team, supplied the previous challenges. No word if the same designers will be used, but the likelihood is high.

Sudoku Grand Prix Round Schedule

1. Netherlands: Jan. 2 – 5
2. Russia: Jan. 30 – Feb. 2
3. India: Feb. 27 – March 2
4. Poland: March 27 – 30
5. Serbia: April 24 – 27
6. Czech Republic: May 22 – 25
7. Italy: June 19 – 22
8. U.K.: July 17 – 20

Source: 2014, Full, Results