Esapekka Lappi pipped Thierry Neuville to the fastest time on a rainy Rally Estonia shakedown as Takamoto Katsuta went off.
Katsuta, who has never finished Rally Estonia before in his previous three attempts, set a best time of 2m56.7s – good enough for equal seventh fastest with M-Sport Ford’s Craig Breen.
But on his fourth attempt at shakedown, Katsuta ran wide in the soft gravel and rolled over into the bushes. He and co-driver Aaron Johnston were able to emerge from the stage albeit with front-end damage, giving the Toyota Next Generation mechanics plenty to do before SS1 later on Thursday.
Katsuta’s team-mates fared much better however as first Esapekka Lappi and then Kalle Rovanperä took turns at the top of the timesheets after the initial passes of the stage.
Video @TakamotoKatsuta rolled on shakedown #RallyEstonia @RallyEstonia @DirtFishRally pic.twitter.com/bx6CHF6lVY
— eWRC-results (@eWRCresults) July 14, 2022
Hyundai’s Neuville then usurped Rovanperä to the tune of 0.4 seconds only for Lappi to storm ahead once more with a time 0.7s better than anybody else on his fifth and final run.
“It will be very challenging because of the conditions, so to be honest it’s hard to know what to expect,” Lappi said, looking ahead to the rally.
“I’ve never been on this rally in wet conditions. I think there will be a few surprises so a 100% push will not be smart.”
Neuville meanwhile isn’t feeling too confident either.
“I don’t lie if I say it’s not my favorite event for sure,” said Neuville. “The two upcoming events are not the best for us but we’re going to try our best.”
Rovanperä will start Friday’s stages as first car on the road, but the moisture in the air may well transform his likely disadvantage into an advantage.
“Hopefully it should help us a bit!” he said of the rain. “But yeah for sure all the places with loose gravel are quite slippy even in the rain, but let’s see how it is tomorrow.”
Home hero Ott Tänak clocked the fourth-fastest time on shakedown, a full second down on his team-mate Neuville but six tenths up on Elfyn Evans and 1.1s clear of Oliver Solberg who ensured all three Hyundais were within the top six.
Breen was seventh fastest and quickest of the M-Sport Ford runners and declared that the “car feels great” for the weekend.
He beat team-mate Gus Greensmith by 0.4s, who described the difficulty facing those further back in the running order.
“When the ground’s quite fresh and hasn’t been used the grip’s quite high, but when you break the top layer it begins to turn into mud,” Greensmith said.
“The last braking was very slippy but you could see it in the lines that it was quite a lot darker, so I think that could be a factor this weekend.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet was 10th fastest, 0.2s down on Greensmith but 1.3s up on the fourth Puma of Adrien Fourmaux.
On a weekend where he desperately needs a big points haul to keep his WRC2 title aspirations alive, Andreas Mikkelsen set the Rally2 pace in his Toksport Škoda, 0.6s up on local driver Georg Linnamäe.
Hyundai’s Teemu Suninen was third fastest, a further 0.5s adrift.
