Sébastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta have suffered disastrous starts to Rally Japan as both punctured on Friday’s first stage.
The infamous Isegami’s Tunnel is always a brutal way for the event to begin properly as the longest stage of the entire event, and just like in 2022 Ogier was the first to suffer as he picked up a flat tire and was forced to stop and change it.
That’s particularly bad news for Toyota’s manufacturers’ championship hopes, as it already trails Hyundai by 15 points and i20s are currently locking out the top two places with SS2 winner Thierry Neuville just half a second behind his team-mate and title rival Ott Tänak.
“No idea [how it happened],” a tight-lipped Ogier said. “The first few corners were very slippy and I was understeering but… yeah.”
Katsuta’s time loss was less severe as he didn’t stop to change, losing one minute instead of two. But the effect was the same as it further damaged Toyota’s hopes.
Neuville’s stage win was largely unexpected given his comfortable lead in the championship, but road position played to his advantage on a still-damp road.
Despair for Ogier as he lost over two minutes
Tänak was the only driver to get close to him, losing 1.2 seconds with third-fastest Elfyn Evans 5.0s down.
The gaps were then enormous to the rest, with overnight leader Adrien Fourmaux losing a whopping 46.9s to fall from first to fourth. But he wasn’t the only one: team-mate Grégoire Munster lost a further 4.5s, and Andreas Mikkelsen was another 3.5s slower.
Fourmaux explained: “There was a lot of leaves on the road and the cars in front are bringing on the leaves which is normal, but every corner is really tricky.”
Overall, that means Tänak, Neuville and Evans are seemingly already clear at the front, separated by 4.2s with a chasm of 45.2s back to Fourmaux.
Munster is seventh, 7.3s down on Fourmaux but 4.4s ahead of Mikkelsen who overshot a corner but admitted the stage was also messy.
“To make sure you get to the finish, you have to go very slow,” he said. “It was full of mud, not easy.”
WRC2 leader Nikolay Gryazin is an incredible fifth overall, splitting the two Rally1 Pumas after beating them both on the stage – setting the fourth fastest time outright.
Sami Pajari is also ahead of Munster, 2.8s adrift of Gryazin after losing just 0.8s to him on SS2.
