Sébastien Ogier is in control on Rally México as he leads Teemu Suninen and Thierry Neuville after the first morning of the event, as Hyundai drivers Ott Tänak and Dani Sordo suffered setbacks.
Ogier only won one stage throughout the morning but was consistently fast, guiding his Toyota Yaris into a 9.7-second lead over Suninen.
“So far, so good,” said Ogier of his morning’s work. “It’s never easy but even in this stage they manage to pull out rocks.”
Suninen lost another 1.9 seconds to Ogier on the short SS6 Parque Bicentenario test, but it has been a solid morning for the M-Sport driver who traditionally has never excelled in México.
“It’s been OK but it has only been morning loop, there is still three days to go,” said Suninen, aware he is only 0.6s ahead of Hyundai’s Neuville.
Parque Bicentenario – the third of nine short, superspecial stages included in this year’s Rally México route – concluded the morning loop and given its short nature, resulted in no major changes in the leaderboard.
But Tänak, who had stormed into the lead on El Chocolate only to lose it immediately when he hit a rock and damaged his rear suspension on Ortega, lost 7.8s to stage winner Neuville in the short stage despite returning to frontrunning pace on the previous Las Minas test.
Tänak is seventh, 8.3s ahead of Gus Greensmith.
Neuville rounds out the podium for Hyundai after a quietly impressive morning considering he was blighted as one of the first runners on the stages. But Neuville wasn’t entirely happy, feeling he should’ve been faster than Elfyn Evans – who was the first man into the tests.
“Obviously I tried very hard to be honest but I don’t know if it’s because I was missing a part of the rear wing [but] I couldn’t match the speed in the last two stages,” he said. “We only matched Elfyn but we should’ve been faster.”
Evans did equally well to limit the damage that running at the head of the field can do. “Not a bad morning,” he said. “On the whole the driving has been OK, it’s been quite tricky but OK. It could still be quite tricky, but let’s see.”
Evans lies 8.8s back in fifth place, with M-Sport Ford driver Esapekka Lappi holding fourth in what has been a handsome morning for the team. Lappi dropped 2.8s to Neuville on Parque Bicentenario but is still within 17s of Ogier’s lead and 2.5s ahead of Evans.
But Lappi wasn’t balled over by his performance: “I think we can improve to be honest,” he said.
Kalle Rovanperä lies sixth after a cautious morning aboard his Yaris. The teenager picked up a slow puncture on El Chocolate that played on his mind on the remaining stages.
“Hopefully the afternoon will be better but I don’t know what to expect,” he said.
“It’s been alright in places, not so alright in others,” was Greensmith’s assessment of his performance. The Briton suffered a spin throughout the loop but otherwise kept it tidy. He’s 46.9s adrift of Ogier’s lead.
Dani Sordo was tipped by many as one to watch on day one of Rally México but his challenge was defused on the first stage with a radiator problem that was resolved on stage, but only after five minutes were surrendered.
But Sordo was back in the wars on the final stage of the morning: “This stage we missed a junction but we have an issue with the car, it is 127 degrees the engine all the time,” he admitted.
Pontus Tidemand leads the R5 charge in his Škoda Fabia, making ninth place overall his own despite being caught behind WRC 2 rival Ole Christian Veiby on the El Chocolate test that kick-started Friday’s action.
Veiby had a calamitous morning as a brake hose broke aboard his Hyundai i20 R5, leaving him with just three operational brakes for three and a half stages.
It’s therefore Veiby’s Hyundai team-mate Nikolay Gryazin that is Tidemand’s closest challenger in WRC 2, but the Russian is 23.4s back in 10th overall.
Marco Bulacia is 11th and leads WRC 3 by over a minute in his Citroen C3 R5 as his rivals all fell by the wayside. Oliver Solberg was showing strong pace in his Volkswagen Polo but whacked a stone in the middle of the road, damaged his sumpguard and lost oil from his engine.
Alberto Heller had been the pacesetter on the first stage in his Ford Fiesta R5 Mk2 but it all went south on the following test, as the Chilean slid wide and heavily damaged the rear of his car.
American superstar Ken Block has entered Rally México in his bespoke Ford Escort Cosworth but the rally has proved to be a disaster. A misfiring engine ruined his plans of entertaining the crowds on Thursday night’s two passes of Street Stage Guanajuato but it would get worse on Friday morning.
Block’s engine overheated, and he is out of the rally.
Leading positions after SS6
1 Ogier (Toyota)
2 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +9.7s
3 Neuville (Hyundai) +10.3s
4 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +16.6s
5 Evans (Toyota) +19.1s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +31.4s
7 Tänak (Hyundai) +38.6s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +46.9s
9 Tidemand (Škoda) +2m39.8s
10 Gryazin (Hyundai) 3m3.2s
