Kalle Rovanperä topped the times on Rally Finland’s shakedown stage, beating Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans by a convincing 0.8 seconds.
Debuting as the shakedown stage last year, Rannankylä was – in Thierry Neuville’s words – a really fast way to begin the fastest weekend of the World Rally Championship season.
It took the world champion, who is yet to win his home round of the WRC, just 1m56.3 seconds to complete the 2.78-mile stage – but it wasn’t all plain sailing for the championship leader who had a suspiciously poor run on his second pass.
Before Rovanperä’s late surge, 2021 Rally Finland winner Evans looked to have won the shakedown stage but he was still 0.3s up on leading Hyundai driver Esapekka who is seeking to add another Finland win to his CV.
Defending Rally Finland winner Ott Tänak was initially fastest of all after the first run, but slipped to fourth by the end of the session, albeit just 0.1s down on Lappi’s best effort.
But all wasn’t 100% aboard his Puma Rally1, as Tänak cryptically commented after the first pass: “What the f*** is happening, the car is living its own life at the moment. Some electrical stuff.”
After a run of disappointing rallies of late, Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta was impressive on shakedown as he gears up for what he considers to be his second home rally.
The Japanese driver was just 0.2s down on Tänak in fifth.
Neuville – who is targeting a podium this weekend – set a best time good enough for sixth, 1.9s down on the pace-setting Toyota.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was seventh in his M-Sport Ford, half a second clear of Teemu Suninen who’s making his second WRC start in a Rally1 car this weekend.
But making his debut in Rally1 machinery and returning to the WRC for the first time in three and a half years is Jari-Matti Latvala.
Although the Toyota team principal’s time on the first pass was over six seconds off the pace, the three-time Finland winner eventually closed that deficit down to 4.6s by the end of shakedown.
Oliver Solberg set the shakedown pace in the Rally2 category, but of the registered WRC2 competitors this weekend it was Miko Marczyk who was fastest from M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux.
Rally Finland’s competitive action gets underway on Thursday evening at 7.05pm local time for the famous Harju street stage.
You can keep up-to-date with all the action live as it happens, complete with exclusive insight and behind-the-scenes content, on DirtFish Live Center.
