Sébastien Ogier leads Rally Islas Canarias by 8.6 seconds after Friday’s leg of action, with Oliver Solberg emerging as his closest rival.
Ogier started Friday down in sixth place (albeit just 1.4s off the lead) following the superspecial inside Gran Canaria Stadium, but immediately hit the front after the first full-length stage.
Repeating the trick on SS4 (SS3 was cancelled due to badly parked spectator cars), the reigning world champion extended his advantage to 5.9s as the Toyotas pulled clear of the rest.
All that changed in the afternoon were the gaps between, and order of, those GR Yaris Rally1s.
Solberg won the first stage in the afternoon by just a single tenth over Ogier to jump from fourth to second place, ahead of team-mates Sami Pajari and Elfyn Evans.
The Frenchman and the Swede continued to outpace the other Toyotas on SS6 with Ogier beating Solberg by 0.2s. Ogier was again fastest on SS7 (by a more emphatic two seconds) as Evans shuffled ahead of Pajari by just 1.3s.
Pajari, however, responded on the superspecial that concluded the day, moving back into third by half a second.
Ogier therefore won all but one of the stages prior to the superspecial, with Solberg 8.9s behind.
“I’m happy because the feeling in the car is better now,” Ogier said. “We worked a little bit in service and still in the afternoon, and I start to enjoy it a lot.”
Championship leader Takamoto Katsuta led the event overnight after an SS1 stage win, but lost touch with his team-mates throughout Friday afternoon. He ended the day 29.7s off Ogier’s lead and 13.3s behind fourth-placed Evans.
Dani Sordo leads the Hyundai trio of Adrien Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville, as the i20 N Rally1s struggled with the same understeer problems they experienced in Canarias last year.
The Spaniard endured a wild slide towards the SS7, though, which led to him shouting and effectively celebrating afterwards, then smiling as he rolled towards the stop control.
“I went wide and touched the barrier with the rear a little bit – amazing!” said Sordo. “This stage is something amazing. I could be here all the time. It’s really a proper style of driving.”
The Rally1 returnee is 3.9s ahead of Fourmaux who made good advancements with his setup through the afternoon, with 2024 world champion Neuville 8.2s behind Fourmaux.
Josh McErlean is the leading M-Sport Ford, 11.7s clear of Jon Armstrong who shot down an escape road sideways in the morning.
Armstrong then clipped a barrier towards the end of SS7, which left the rear-left his car a little damaged.
“We had a pretty decent stage, just a kilometer from the end we ran wide on a corner, it took me by surprise the braking grip wasn’t there, so we just ran wide and clipped an Armco,” he said.
Yohan Rossel gave Lancia its first WRC2 win in Croatia two weeks ago, and is on course to double up in Canarias. The French driver ended Friday 20.5s seconds ahead of Alejandro Cachón with championship leader Léo Rossel third.
