Elfyn Evans holds the early lead of Rally Sweden after Thursday night’s opening superspecial stage. The Toyota driver was 0.5 seconds faster than team-mate Kalle Rovanperä and Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, who set identical times on the 3.2-mile blast under darkness.
With very little fresh snowfall, first on the road appeared to the ideal position on the stop-start stage containing many junctions. While others had to deal with earlier cars’ lines and the ice base starting to break up, Evans took full advantage of that position to be the early pacesetter.
“Obviously the braking points are difficult in the dark like this,” he reported, “so it’s a bit difficult to judge but all OK.”
Rovanperä and Tänak were third and fourth on the road as they matched each other’s times. Rovanperä, though, had chosen to take an extra spare wheel – with Friday’s stages in mind – and so was carrying extra weight as a result.
“It all counts tomorrow,” Rovanperä noted, aware that Friday’s stages are – unusually – likely to also suit the earlier runners. “It seems that when it’s like this it can be good to be even first because you have the fresh road and no lines anywhere so it’s quite clean.”
Tänak was also content with his start, ahead of 77 stage miles on Friday on the first event for the upgraded Hyundai. He said: “The feeling is good in the car, shakedown and here seems to be working fine as well. Obviously the surface is breaking up quite a bit so a bit messy surface but still I think OK run, all good for tomorrow.”
Ott Tänak is just 0.5s off the lead ahead of Friday's stages
From second on the road, Adrien Fourmaux went fourth fastest, 0.7s further adrift, after a slight brush with a snowbank left some cosmetic damage to the rear of his i20. “A bit surprised on one corner so I hit the bumper on the snowbank,” he admitted, “but nothing really major. I just struggled to get the pace at the beginning, then it came more and more, so it’s positive for tomorrow.”
After topping the times in shakedown, Thierry Neuville could only manage fifth on the opening stage proper, 3.7s off the pace. He reported an intercom problem and took a cautious approach. “Every time I’m in this stage, I’m always on the limit of the braking but this time it was the opposite – I was a bit early,” said the world champion. “But don’t want to risk anything in there.”
The Toyotas of Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari lie sixth and seventh overnight, separated by just 0.2s, just over 5s off the overall pace. Much of that could be attributed to less favorable road position. “Tomorrow’s stages are quite different conditions, so hopefully not like this!” noted Katsuta.
“I was just happy to do a clean stage today and then start the proper rally tomorrow,” added Pajari.
The M-Sport Ford Pumas of Josh McErlean, Grégoire Munster and Mārtiņš Sesks fill out the rest of the top 10. McErlean was 7.5s slower than leader Evans but 3s faster than his more experienced team-mate.
Josh McErlean was fastest of the M-Sport drivers through the opening test
McErlean reckoned he was “a bit scrappy in the junctions, which there’s a lot of”, but was satisfied with his time. Munster, however, was at a loss to explain his struggles.
“I don’t know,” said Munster. “I don’t manage to find grip and it was the same on the shakedown so we see what we can do.”
Sesks made a mistake on the first junction but was still only 0.5s down on Munster.
Local drivers set the pace among the WRC2 runners as Oliver Solberg took his Toyota to a time 1.4s faster than the Škoda of fellow Swede Pontus Tidemand.
Roope Korhonen and Arctic Rally winner Tuukka Kauppinen made it three GR Yaris Rally2s in the top four, another second or so further back.
