Thierry Neuville has established a slim 0.6-second Rally Portugal lead over Sébastien Ogier after the opening superspecial on the streets of Figueira da Foz.
Behind the lead pair, there was a tie for the final podium place, as both Ott Tänak and Takamoto Katsuta were two seconds off Neuville’s pace.
While it was an ideal start for the championship leader, tires were primarily on Neuville’s mind after clocking the fastest time.
“I don’t want to be the one who brings down the great atmosphere which we have here,” said Neuville. “But a stage like this with only donuts ahead of 70 kilometers of stages tomorrow with the same tires is absolute nonsense. We have said it many times but nobody listens.”
Neuville wasn’t the only one that lamented being stuck with the same tire set they’ll have to use for the first four stages on Friday morning. With the need to preserve their rubber, Kalle Rovanperä, Sébastien Ogier and Oliver Solberg also admitted to not pushing as hard as they’d have liked, despite being keen to put on a show on the spectator-friendly superspecial.
Only one driver in the Rally1 field has taken a single spare tire for the first four stages of the rally: Adrien Fourmaux. Every crew bar fifth-fastest Kalle Rovanperä selected four soft compound tires – the reigning world champion has three – but Fourmaux only has one hard tire in the boot of his Ford Puma.
“You need to take risks if you want to gain some time,” said Fourmaux, who set a sixth-fastest time 3.1s behind Neuville’s benchmark. |We are quite confident with our tire choice.”
Dani Sordo and Elfyn Evans were seventh and eighth-fastest, while Grégoire Munster finished in amongst the Rally2 field.
Drama befell the WRC2 lead battle before it had even truly begun, as a mistake from Sami Pajari has put his rally in jeopardy.
Pajari, who scored a podium last time he was registered for points in Sweden, clipped a concrete barrier on the inside of a donut section, damaging the front right of his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.
The bad news for Pajari is that whatever has broken on his car, he’ll have to fix it on his own tomorrow morning in the road section to stage two, as he had to check straight into parc fermé after the opening superspecial finish and there’s no service until the end of Friday.
WRC2 championship leader Yohan Rossel leads the class by 0.5s from Pierre-Louis Loubet, who is starting his campaign in Portugal. Third-fastest was 2016 Rally Portugal winner Kris Meeke, who is registered in the WRC’s second tier but is present primarily for his national championship campaign with Hyundai Portugal.
Though he’d already warned he wouldn’t be a threat for victory, a quick trip around the streets of Figueira do Foz had Meeke hankering for the throttle pedal: “I’ll find it hard to resist [pushing] tomorrow,” said Meeke.
Solberg, who is tied for the championship lead with Rossel, was 1.6s off the Citroën driver’s benchmark time, with two-time Production WRC champion Armindo Araújo and Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen completing the top five.
