Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville emerged fastest on the 2.92-mile shakedown stage for Rally Turkey.
Neuville is in need of a good result this weekend after retiring from Rally Estonia two weeks ago, and made the best possible start with a 3m23.4s time that was 1.2 seconds clear of team-mate Ott Tänak.
His effort was set at his third attempt, unlike the majority of his rivals who set their best on the second run of the shakedown stage.
Tänak had been fastest there, just 0.2s up on the leading Toyota driver of Kalle Rovanperä who was the quickest World Rally Championship driver on the initial pass of shakedown.
But Rovanperä isn’t sure how these times will translate when the rally gets underway later on Friday afternoon.
“I know the that the times are not so important, you have to be consistent and out of trouble so let’s try to have a good weekend,” he said.
Rovanperä’s team-mate Elfyn Evans was fourth fastest, just 0.1s shy of the Finn and 1.5s slower than Neuville’s benchmark.
“Already it’s very loose so it’s going to be tough out there but obviously we’re here to give it our best shot,” Evans said after his first run.
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Sébastien Ogier made it three Toyotas in the top five, 0.2s down on Evans. But Ogier heads into Friday’s two stages in the dubious position of road sweeper, knowing he has to put the hammer down to avoid starting early on the road on Saturday which could wreck his weekend.
All three Toyotas set their best time on the second run too, with their third attempts all over the four-minute mark.
“Like always [it’s] really, really rough, a lot of rocks,” said Ogier, who claimed Citroën’s most recent WRC win on Rally Turkey last year.
“Luckily the whole rally is not like here. This evening going to be very crucial so for sure we have to be at our best straightaway.”
On his first appearance since the Monte Carlo Rally in January, Sébastien Loeb posted the sixth best time for Hyundai as he admitted to “trying to get the feeling” from his i20 Coupe WRC. But the nine-time world champion remains happy at this very early stage of the weekend.
Teemu Suninen was the lead M-Sport Ford driver in seventh, 3.9s slower than Neuville at the front and 0.9s up on his team-mate Gus Greensmith. Greensmith set the third quickest time on the initial pass, but wouldn’t improve on that effort and then crashed out.
Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
“[I’m] quite confident but this rally looks incredibly rough and we just have to have good luck to get through without problems. But we’ll do our best,” Suninen said.
Greensmith, who won in WRC2 Pro last year (now WRC2), added before his crash: “Yeah, I like it here, it’s good! For sure it’s going to be a tricky rally we know that, but I feel good you know, so I’m going to give it some this weekend.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet was ninth fastest in his 2C Competition Hyundai, matching’s Greensmith best on his second run.
M-Sport’s Esapekka Lappi was slowest of the Rally1 runners in 10th place, 0.6s shy of Greensmith and Loubet and 5.4s adrift of the ultimate pace.
“For sure it [this rally] feels a bit crazy after Estonia but we knew what to expect to be honest,” Lappi assessed.
He still had a 14.1s advantage in hand over Toksport WRT’s Eyvind Brynildsen, who was the fastest of the Rally2 runners in his Škoda Fabia R5 Evo.
Shakedown times
1 Neuville (Hyundai) 3m23.4s
2 Tänak (Hyundai) +1.2s
3 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1.4s
4 Evans (Toyota) +1.5s
5 Ogier (Toyota) +1.7s
6 Loeb (Hyundai) +3.6s
7 Suninen (M-Sport) +3.9s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport) +3.8s
9 Loubet (Hyundai) +3.8s
10 Lappi (M-Sport) +5.4s
