Thierry Neuville scooped the first stage win of Rally Italy, establishing a 0.5s lead over a four-strong army of Toyotas right behind him on the Olbia superspecial.
A quick blast through the mixed surface test, which was held on a mix of city streets and a purpose-built gravel section, brought a surprising amount of action for a traditional curtain-raising superspecial.
Hyundai’s best-placed man in the drivers’ championship led the line for his team once more, the only driver able to stop Toyota scoring what would otherwise have been an imperious 1-2-3-4 to begin the event.
Despite being in the second ‘Next Generation’ squad Takamoto Katsuta was the quickest Toyota, and might have gone fastest had the front-right of his GR Yaris not dug in after a landing and sent him understeering wide on a long left-hander.
That same long-left hander also caught out Esapekka Lappi, who was fifth-fastest behind Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä – and a second off rally leader Neuville’s pace.
Instead of digging in and understeering wide, he oversteered wildly through the same turn as Katsuta, with the somewhat tidier Rally2 cars which had run before him giving him slightly too much confidence to push.
“One place [I] was 10 metres too wide – bit was super slippy,” said Lappi.
“I expected much more grip to be honest and it looked from the [live] video the first cars had good grip. But I believe it’s going a bit worse now. A bit too spectacular but we will calm down now and reset for tomorrow.”
Ott Tänak and Dani Sordo combined to ensure no Ford Puma would make the top seven going into the first full day of Sardinian stages on Friday, as the quartet of M-Sport cars were all over two seconds off the pace.
Adrien Fourmaux was fastest of the purple cars ahead of Craig Breen, who felt he’d had a scrappy run through the new-for-2022 superspecial.
“I made a bit of a mess of that,” said Breen. “I went wide at a corner where I needed to be clean and push all the dust in front of ourselves, so I had to basically stop and wait for the dust to settle.
“But I feel good, today felt nice, I felt comfortable with the car, so let’s see.”
Gus Greensmith completes the top 10 but was already in trouble, as codriver Jonas Andersson had to deliver hand signals due to an intercom problem.
“The team forgot to put a lead in the car, so I can’t connect f***ing intercom,” explained Greensmith. “I hope we can find a spare one otherwise there’s no point doing tomorrow.”
SS1 Results
- Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) 2m26.8s
- Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota) +0.5s
- Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +0.7s
- Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +1.0s
- Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota) +1.0s
- Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +1.3s
- Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai) +1.7s
- Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (M-Sport Ford) +2.2s
- Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (M-Sport Ford) +2.4s
- Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (M-Sport Ford) +3.4s
- Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (M-Sport Ford) +4.9s
