Andreas Mikkelsen holds a narrow lead on Rally Poland ahead of Toyota pair Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans, with the trio ending Friday covered by only two seconds.
Road order dynamics no doubt played a part in Mikkelsen’s Friday success; he was the last Rally1 car bar one, getting the biggest benefit of loose gravel being swept away on Friday morning to build a 7.4s lead.
But when Friday afternoon came it presented an opportunity for Kalle Rovanperä to strike back. A second running of earlier stages would allow the reigning world champion to make up for his lack of preparation, caused by his last-minute arrival as an emergency substitute for Sébastien Ogier.
On stage five Rovanperä was fastest by 4.7s and, combined with Mikkelsen being too cautious, took 14.4s out of the lead Hyundai and briefly went into the lead.
When he knew where he was going Rovanperä was able to rediscover his trademark speed
But it flipped back in Mikkelsen’s favor thereafter; Wieliczki had been canceled on its morning pass so Rovanperä had no reference from an earlier run, which allowed Mikkelsen to take 2.3s back and the lead with it. The second pass of Olecko being called off took the other second pass opportunity away from Rovanperä.
It was a day full of interruptions due to spectator issues: stage three was canceled after three cars were through, stage six was paused and resumed and then stage seven was also canceled after only three cars through.
Evans had started third on the road on SS2, which quickly became second when Ott Tänak hit a deer at full speed and retired first thing on Friday morning. Despite that disadvantage, he spent much of the day trading places with Rovanperä – though in the end, Rovanperä’s stage win on the Mikołajki superspecial put the Finn back ahead of his team-mate by 0.2s.
Adrien Fourmaux stole fourth place away at from Mārtiņš Sesks at the very end of Friday, on the short Mikołajki Arena test.
Sesks had coped remarkably well with having no hybrid onboard his Ford Puma, starting Friday with a second-fastest time only 0.3s off Mikkelsen’s benchmark. He was unlucky to be the first car to run after the stage six red flag but still ended Friday only 7.7s off the lead, a remarkable start to his maiden Rally1 outing in the WRC.
Grégoire Munster is the second points-scoring M-Sport car as Sesks is not a manufacturer-registered entrant. He set a second-fastest stage time on the first pass of Olecko but had started to fall back in the afternoon and ended 13.6s adrift of Sesks.
All three M-Sport cars and Thierry Neuville were somewhat fortunate two stages were called off; they had all taken a full complement of soft tires which, due to unexpected abrasiveness of the road and lack of ruts on the second pass, were wearing faster than anticipated.
Neuville succeeded in his mission of keeping Takamoto Katsuta behind to improve his road order position for Saturday, holding off the third Toyota by 2.5s.
Sami Pajari is locked in a battle for WRC2 victory with local star Kajetan Kajetanowicz, with the pair separated by 8.9s.
Josh McErlean completes the podium with only 1.7s in hand over Robert Virves, as the 2022 Junior WRC champion embarked on only his second rally of the year.
