Yoann Bonato and Mathieu Franceschi are only 0.3 seconds apart in the battle for Rally Islas Canarias victory, though Alejandro Cachón had briefly bested them both until a puncture.
Five-time French Tarmac champion Bonato unsurprisingly set the early pace, having already won the Qualifying Stage on Thursday. He won the Santa Lucía test first thing on Friday morning to take the lead but then faced strong resistance from Cachón’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 immediately afterwards.
Cachón’s march to the front was imperious: he won the morning passes of both Tejeda and Gáldar, the latter of which was by 5.5s over his nearest rival.
But the Toyota Spain driver found himself tumbling down the leaderboard after the second running of Santa Lucía, picking up a front-right puncture that disintegrated right at the finish line and losing 40s.
That left Bonato and Franceschi, who is second in the ERC drivers’ championship standings behind the absent Simone Tempestini, to battle it out for first place. Franceschi finally hit back on the last stage of the day, beating Bonato by 1.7s to cut the lead gap to 0.3s.
Franceschi's Škoda shone under the Spanish island's sun
Cachon won four of Friday’s six stages but he wasn’t the only rapid Spanish championship regular causing headaches for the ERC contingent. Diego Ruiloba, in his second season at Rally2 level with Citroën Spain, spent Friday hot on the heels of reigning champion Hayden Paddon for the final podium place.
Neither were as fast as Miklós Csomós, who finished third on the season-opening Rally Hungary, first thing on Friday morning. But his rally ended on stage four, suffering a high-speed crash into the side of a house. Both Csomós and co-driver Attila Nagy were taken to hospital for precautionary checks.
“We had a problem on the stage but we are both okay,” said Nagy. “We both have some fractures but nothing serious although we have a lot of pain everywhere because the impact was from 110kph to zero, so thank you once again to Škoda for making such a strong car.”
Paddon had initially struggled with the handling of his Hyundai i20 N Rally2 on the morning loop: “As soon as I want to push I’ve got no front end at all,” he said after the first pass of stages. “It’s a balancing act trying to keep it smooth.”
But by the afternoon Paddon had cured some of those ills. His run on Gáldar 2 finally put some breathing space between himself and Ruiloba, outpacing the reigning Spanish Superchampionship Junior champion by 4.6s.
José Suárez put on an afternoon push to climb the leaderboard, climbing from ninth to fifth over Friday’s last three stages. His overnight advantage over the lead Ford Fiesta Rally2 of Jon Armstrong is a mere 1.3s.
Jon Armstrong lies sixth in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta, ahead of Mads Østberg
That progress up the leaderboard by Suárez was aided by a few factors: Cachon’s puncture was one, Miko Marczyk’s struggles with brake fade on his Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 was another, and finally Mads Østberg was struggling to gel with his new car/tire package.
Though the one-time WRC2 champion is very familiar with the C3 Rally2, it was his first time driving it with Michelins on asphalt, which he’d initially struggled to adapt to.
Østberg’s paced improved in the afternoon but he was still marooned in seventh place and was annoyed at one point that he was driving “like my grandmother.”
Speaking at the end of the day, he said: “That’s not good. What can we do?”
There was also a near miss with wildlife of sorts on the final stage of the day, Gáldar: “At least we saved the dog in the stage because he was in the middle of the road,” added Østberg, “OK, that cost us a couple of seconds but the dog is alive. That’s the good thing about today.”
Local hero Luis Monzón, who was born in the rally’s host city of Las Palmas, is always considered a favorite for victory on the island he still calls home. But his rally ended before anyone else’s: he crashed out on the opening superspecial on Thursday night, striking a concrete block inside CB Gran Canaria’s basketball stadium. That impact ripped the left-rear wheel off his Citroën and while he drove to the finish line, he retired from the rally.
