Sébastien Ogier has got his quest for a third victory of the season underway with a win on the first stage of Croatia Rally, having beaten Thierry Neuville to the top spot.
Ogier got proceedings underway on the first stage and a time of 11m57 seconds was good enough to seal him the stage win. And the Toyota driver seemed relatively at ease despite the low grip.
“Challenging, because the grip is low,” he explained. “We expected it a bit that after a wet week there would be some dirt on the road. So far so good.”
Neuville’s rally began with a second-place finish on SS1, but the Hyundai driver wasn’t completely happy with how his i20 N Rally1 was handling.
He came through to the finish 2.6s down on Ogier.
“Tough. I was fighting the car through the whole stage,” he said. I had a big job to do in that stage. I was kicked around all the time – not easy.”
But there was frustration for Ott Tänak, who after finding himself fastest by 1.7s through the first split, quickly lost that time by the second following a stall at a slight uphill climb.
The M-Sport driver continued to lose time as the stage went on, eventually ending up 10.5s behind Ogier’s fastest time and third on the leaderboard.
But a stall was not the only concern Tänak had, saying there was another problem to contend with.
“I was losing the boost and then I stalled,” he said.
“After that I really struggled with many things, we’ve got some steering issue picked up on the road section. That was a big job.”
Kalle Rovanperä could only manage to get within 11.3s of the fastest time, and last year’s Croatia Rally winner was surprised at the road conditions.
“I don’t know. Nothing special happened but it was surprisingly dirty and slippery,” he said.
“I was pushing quite well with no mistakes but it was not so fast. It’s difficult to be clean but I tried my best.”
Following his turbo issue yesterday, Elfyn Evans was able to make the start and got through the first pass of Mali Lipovec – Grdanjci with no trouble.
He sits 12.3s off teammate Ogier’s time and fifth, ahead of Esapekka Lappi.
For Lappi, it wasn’t the easiest start, who said dirt was a big problem out on the stage and is currently 23s off the fastest time.
“It’s very challenging for me, at least,” he explained. “Too much dirt for me so I am not confident.”
Takamoto Katsuta and Pierre-Louis Loubet are seventh and eighth, with the pair 29.2s and 30.3s off the lead respectively.
