Last year’s winner Thierry Neuville set the pace on the Rally Japan shakedown stage ahead of Toyota drivers Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier.
Running for the second time after debuting in its new asphalt form last season, Japan is the final round of the 2023 World Rally Championship season, and both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ world championships have already been sewn up.
But there is pride on the line for all drivers to end their season on a high, and the short 1.7-mile Kurugaike Park shakedown stage offered the chance for them to get their eye in ahead of what should be a tricky end to the year – particularly with rain forecast on Friday morning.
Common thinking is that would put the driver first on the road at an advantage, but new double world champion Kalle Rovanperä isn’t so sure.
“The condition will be really difficult for us,” he said. “Friday is much dirtier than what we expect and if the rain comes it’s going to be incredible.
“I think it’s maybe not so easy to be first car on the road now, let’s see.”
The Toyota driver was fastest after the first pass of the dry shakedown stage though, only to be beaten by all three of his team-mates at the end of the session.
Nobody could better Hyundai driver Neuville however, who topped the times by an impressive 1.4 seconds over Evans. The pair are fighting for the runner-up spot in this year’s championship, split by seven points before round 13, but Neuville’s priority is on stealing another win on Toyota’s home patch.
“Challenging event that’s for sure, but we have no pressure, we are here to have fun and target another victory,” he said.
“Our main contenders have a lot more pressure than us this weekend. If everything works fine, it’s going to be a nice fight.”
Ogier – a winner in Japan when it was a gravel event in 2010 – was equal third fastest on shakedown, sharing the position with Katsuta as the duo both recorded a best time of 2m04.6s; 0.2s down on Evans. Rovanperä was a further tenth behind.
Esapekka Lappi completed the top six in his Hyundai on his first visit to Japan, one spot and just one tenth ahead of team-mate Dani Sordo who hasn’t driven the i20 N Rally1 on asphalt since January’s Monte Carlo Rally.
M-Sport duo Adrien Fourmaux and Ott Tänak rounded out the Rally1 runners; Fourmaux bettering his more experienced team-mate by 0.2s. Fourmaux, whose last event in the Puma was 13 months ago, tackled the shakedown stage six times as he wasn’t able to have a pre-event test.
“It’s really good for us to be back in a Rally1 after one year,” said the Frenchman, who has spent the season piloting a Ford Fiesta Rally2.
“We know it’s going to be challenging but honestly I just want to enjoy. We’ll see what we can do.”
New WRC2 champion Andreas Mikkelsen was fastest of the Rally2 cars in 10th overall.
