Thierry Neuville grabbed the Ypres Rally lead from Craig Breen on the final stage of the first loop, but has just 0.4 seconds in hand over his Hyundai team-mate.
Neuville started Zonnebeke 1.6s behind Breen, who had won both of the previous two stages. But Breen wasn’t quite as comfortable on SS4 and ceded two seconds to Neuville and, with it, the rally lead.
“That was for sure the worst stage of the loop for me,” Breen said.
“I took some silly references from the R5 car [from when he last competed on the Ypres Rally 2019] and you just need to be much more confident with the aero a little bit. But it was a nice first loop.”
Asked about his plan of attack for the upcoming repeat pass of the stages, Breen added: “More flat to the square right, and let’s see what we can do. It’s a big fight.”
In taking the lead, Belgian Neuville also took his first ever World Rally Championship stage win on home soil, despite feeling he could have pushed harder.
“Everything is under control, we could go faster but there’s no need yet,” he said.
“I just want to keep it smooth and clean and enjoy as well because it’s good fun.”
Ott Tänak led the contest after the opening stage, setting a time some 2.3s better than anybody else could manage. But on stages two and three, the 2019 world champion dropped significant time to his two pace-setting Hyundai team-mates.
SS4, the final stage of the loop, was more encouraging as he dropped 1.3s to stage winner Neuville, but Tänak is struggling to keep tabs on Breen and Neuville who have previous – and healthy – experience of the stages.
“The middle, long stages [SS2 and SS3] are quite demanding and in places it’s difficult to know where to drive with the junctions,” he said.
“Second loop hopefully we know more so should be a bit more fun, but it’s challenging being here the first time.”
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
Elfyn Evans leads Toyota’s charge in fourth spot overall, just 0.8s behind Tänak’s third-placed Hyundai.
He too is going through a period of adapting to the unique Ypres stages, saying: “Trying to read everything quickly isn’t easy when it’s so fast, so it hasn’t been an easy start but we keep trying.”
Kalle Rovanperä, the winner last time out in Estonia, is fifth, 5.3s behind Evans but 7.8s ahead of world championship leader Sébastien Ogier.
“It hasn’t been a very beautiful start for us,” Ogier, who is 30.3s adrift of the lead, said.
“I didn’t expect to suffer so much being first on the road honestly but it’s very low grip and dusty. Obviously it’s not the only reason, there’s some speed missing comparing to Craig and Thierry but we need to try and find a solution.”
Takamoto Katsuta has ensured fourth to seventh places are occupied by Toyotas; the Toyota junior trailing Ogier by 17.6s.
While Katsuta admitted it was “a bit frustrating” to have lost as much as 47.9s over the loop, he was aware stronger times “comes with experience so it’s OK”.
Photo: M-Sport
M-Sport’s rally has been far from OK, however, as Gus Greensmith joined team-mate Adrien Fourmaux in ditching his Fiesta WRC.
Greensmith’s misdemeanor was far less dramatic than Fourmaux’s on the previous stage, but the consequence was the same as he got his M-Sport Ford stuck.
The car was not heavily damaged, but as he tried to release his Fiesta from the ditch co-driver Chris Patterson could be heard saying “forget it, forget it”.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was frustrated to lose time passing a stricken M-Sport for a second stage in succession, but he is now up to eighth overall – albeit 50.4s behind Katsuta – because of the M-Sport team’s drama.
Photo: M-Sport
Teemu Suninen has however upheld M-Sport honor in WRC2, leading the category and the Rally2 class in ninth overall.
Nikolay Gryazin was his closest class rival before he ran wide on a square-left corner and ditched his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Oliver Solberg and Jari Huttunen are second and third as they debut Hyundai’s new i20 N Rally2, with the pair split by just 0.3s. Solberg is however 22.7s behind Suninen’s Fiesta.
WRC3 championship leader Yohan Rossel leads a gaggle of local experts in 10th overall. He had been trailing Davy Vanneste by over 10s before Vanneste retired on SS3.
SS4 times
1 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) 4m34s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) +1.3s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +1.7s
4 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +2s
5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +3.6s
6 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +3.7s
Leading positions after SS4
1 Neuville/Wydaeghe 34m42.2s
2 Breen/Nagle +0.4s
3 Tänak/Järveoja +16.4s
4 Evans/Martin +17.2s
5 Rovanperä/Halttunen +22.5s
6 Ogier/Ingrassia +30.3s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Keaton Williams (Toyota) +47.9s
8 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Florian Haut-Labourdette (2C Competition Hyundai) +1m38.3s
9 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +2m47.5s
10 Yohan Rossel/Alexandre Coria (Citroën) +2m51.9s
