Thierry Neuville has stormed into an early Rally Turkey lead, heading a Hyundai 1-2-3 after the opening 8.63-mile Içmeler stage.
Despite it being the first stage of a notoriously tough rally, everyone was on a charge so as to avoid being near the top of the road order on Saturday, as the reversed overall classification after Friday’s two stages dictates the running order for the following day.
Neuville, who started fifth on the road courtesy of being fifth in the standings, looked to be in the optimum place as he swept to the first scratch time of the weekend, 3.3 seconds quicker than team-mate Sébastien Loeb.
“I had a good stage to be honest but obviously tricky conditions, quite slippy,” he said.
“I try to take it clever, the rally is going to be tough, until the last meter nothing is done so we have to have a good weekend this weekend and try to get the win.”
Loeb was eighth to enter the stage, and made use of a cleaner road than the majority of his rivals to go second quickest on his first World Rally Championship event since January’s Monte Carlo Rally.
“It was a good start,” Loeb admitted. “I tried to push, tried to get the feeling. At the end I think it was quite a good stage, not perfect but not too bad.”
Ott Tänak was the slowest of the factory Hyundai drivers, 3.5s down on Neuville, but crucially was 0.4s faster than Toyota’s Elfyn Evans who occupies fourth position.
Tänak, who started the stage third on the road, wasn’t entirely happy though, lobbying for the three minute gaps between the cars to be extended.
“It’s tricky with the dust so if organizer doesn’t do anything next one will be bad. It’s demanding,” he said.
Evans meanwhile was surprised at the level of grip available to his Yaris WRC, starting second on the road.
“It was alright,” Evans said, describing his SS1 performance. “I was surprised at the level of grip in some places. Could’ve been more committed.”
Points leader Sébastien Ogier is fifth overall, 1.4s slower than Tänak and 5.1s adrift of Neuville, and just 0.1s quicker than team-mate Kalle Rovanperä and M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen who shared the sixth fastest time.
While Suninen admitted “I was really pushing my maximum”, Rovanperä hinted he had more in reserve.
“It was a quite careful stage for me, I was too slow in many places,” he said.
Esapekka Lappi was eighth fastest for M-Sport, 0.4s behind his two compatriots ahead but fully 5.3s quicker than team-mate Gus Greensmith.
Greensmith, who suffered an off on shakedown, admitted he “struggled” with a lack of grip but was 2.2s faster than 2C Competition-run Pierre-Louis Loubet who rounds out the top 10.
SS1 times
1 Neuville (Hyundai) 10m13.1s
2 Loeb (Hyundai) +3.3s
3 Tänak (Hyundai) +3.5s
4 Evans (Toyota) +3.9s
5 Ogier (Toyota) +5.1s
6 Suninen (M-Sport) +5.2s
7 Rovanperä (Toyota) +5.2s
8 Lappi (M-Sport) +5.6s
9 Greensmith (M-Sport) +10.9s
10 Loubet (Hyundai) +13.1s
