Takamoto Katsuta set the fastest time at Rally Finland shakedown ahead of Toyota team-mate Sébastien Ogier and M-Sport’s Josh McErlean.
Using a reduced version of the Ruuhimäki test, which features on Friday’s leg of the rally, Sami Pajari was the quickest driver after the first pass, but fell to eighth by the end of shakedown.
Instead it was Katsuta who rose to the top after his third run over the stage – his 2m13.8s time a clear 0.9s ahead of Ogier who won in Finland last year.
McErlean meanwhile was just 0.3s shy of Ogier, but did four competitive runs and one extra with a VIP passenger (former Top Gear and Grand Tour host Richard Hammond) as opposed to Ogier’s three.
Ott Tänak and Kalle Rovanperä were fourth and fifth fastest respectively with Adrien Fourmaux completing the top six.
Elfyn Evans was a tenth shy of Fourmaux but half a second ahead of Pajari, with Thierry Neuville down in ninth; 3.1s off Katsuta’s benchmark.
Grégoire Munster and Mãrtiņš Sesks completed the Rally1 times, as Oliver Solberg set the pace in WRC2 despite initially admitting to struggling to readjust to Rally2.
