Mārtiņš Sesks comfortably leads Tet Rally Liepāja, winning all but one stage on the first day of the Latvian round of the European Rally Championship.
Sesks now holds a 28.3-second advantage over ERC points leader Hayden Paddon, with Mads Østberg a further 8.3s back in third.
There were no problems with dust in the second loop of stages after earlier rainfall. SS4 Īvande and SS5 Snēpelē were both run in relatively light rain, so road sweeping remained a factor, partly offset by the soft gravel getting more rutted in places as cars passed.
Sesks’ Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 was 5.9s faster than Paddon’s Hyundai i20 N Rally2 through the 16 miles of SS4 – a faster stage that was quite narrow in places, interspersed with technical sections.
Østberg (Citroën C3 Rally2) was a further 2.5s slower but with Robert Virves (Ford Fiesta Rally2) some 19.5s off the pace, the young Estonian dropped behind both Paddon and Østberg overall.
“I’m not happy to lose time, so I need to increase my speed,” said Østberg. But he dropped further time to the two cars in front on SS5, reckoning he was “probably a bit too fast because I end up a little bit too much on the outside. So it’s a difficult balance but I am doing my best.”
Sesks further extended his lead on SS5 before being pegged back slightly on the Liepāja City superspecial stage after facing wetter conditions than the earlier runners. The local driver maintained he was taking it “quite easy” through the afternoon.
“It wasn’t the best from me,” he said. “Still lots of places and lots of things to improve for tomorrow so it hasn’t been perfect.
“Let’s see how it goes with the forecast, how much it rains, and how the surface is draining the water, so it will be quite interesting tomorrow.”
Paddon, who held a 37-point lead over Sesks and Østberg heading into the event, opened an advantage of 8.3s over Østberg. Struggling to find a rhythm, he said: “In some parts the road’s sweeping and in some parts the road’s getting slower so it’s really hard to judge.
“I just wasn’t brave enough in the dust on the first stage so we lost a lot of time.
“We’re never going to get 30 seconds on Mārtiņš without any mistakes from his side. But to be honest, with how the weekend started, I’m pretty happy with the recovery. But obviously we’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow to try and keep second as well.”
Virves lies fourth overnight, 5.9s behind Østberg but with both Mikko Heikkilä (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) and Georg Linnamäe (Hyundai) taking time out of him through the afternoon before the superspecial.
“In the beginning the times were slightly better than on the last two [afternoon] stages,” admitted Virves. “I think it felt quite OK on both of the stages but the surface was obviously getting more and more rutted and sandy so it’s hard to say.”
Hyundai driver Josh McErlean jumped Mathieu Franceschi on the superspecial stage to lie seventh, but will start ahead of the Frenchman in Sunday’s road order, which was set before the short blast around Liepāja.
Franceschi’s Fabia Rally2 evo lies just 2.4s behind McErlean, with reigning champion Efrén Llarena only 1.5s further back in a close battle in the lower reaches of the top 10. Llarena reported that a fuel-pump issue on his Fabia was costing him power during the day.
Tenth overnight is Simone Campedelli (Škoda), nearly 30s further back, ahead of the similar older-spec Fabias of British champion Osian Pryce and Erik Cais.
