Sébastien Ogier and Esapekka Lappi shared the honor of the World Rally Championship’s first stage win since March to lead Rally Estonia by 0.1 seconds over Ott Tänak on Friday night.
The 0.78-mile-Tartu test was the first proper WRC stage since Covid-19 curtailed the 2020 season, and was a tight and twisty affair for the drivers to get back into.
Ogier’s Toyota Yaris WRC was the first car in and wouldn’t be toppled, recording a time of 1m17.0s.
“It’s an exciting weekend ahead,” Ogier said. “It’s good to be back and fighting. Everything is ready, the car feels good and we had good preparations so let’s go for it.”
Lappi’s Ford Fiesta WRC was third fastest on shakedown despite he and M-Sport team-mate predicting that they won’t be able to live with Hyundai and Toyota this weekend.
And it was a similarly strong performance from Lappi on SS1 who tied with Ogier to share the overnight lead with his former Citroën team-mate.
A surprised Lappi said: “It didn’t feel that good to be honest!” when he learned of his joint-fastest time.
“Well this is not what the stages will be tomorrow but we had a good shakedown, a good opening stage so looking forward.”
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
Reigning World Rally Champion Tänak was fastest on shakedown and is being tipped by many as the man to beat on his home event, but he had to settle for third on SS1. However the Hyundai driver isn’t planning on staying there when the rally heads to the forests on Saturday.
“It’s special [to be here in Estonia],” he said. “It’s actually a chance for us to start let’s say the final sprint to the end in a good way.
“It will be a tough few days, the competition will be tight, but it’s definitely our opportunity so we need to make the best of it.”
Despite appearing to struggle with a start response issue in his Hyundai, Craig Breen was fourth fastest; 0.4s slower than stage winners Ogier and Lappi and 0.3s away from team-mate Tänak.
“I had a little issue, hit a wrong switch at the start and I think it actually helped the car a bit,” he said. “We’re back here again, it’s really incredible to be back in the car I missed it so much.”
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans completed Tartu fifth fastest and was 0.2s shy of Breen. Fellow Toyota drivers Takamoto Katsuta and Kalle Rovanperä shared the seventh fastest time, both 1.4s slower than the other Yaris WRC driven by Ogier.
Photo: Jarek Jõepera
“The feeling is nice,” Rovanperä said.
“Always these stages, these small stages it’s really tricky and I don’t have so much experience in these cars so the time is not so good but it’s also a clean run with no mistakes so that’s good for tomorrow.”
WRC2 points leader Mads Östberg muscled his Citroën C3 R5 into sixth overall behind Evans, admitting he was “glad to feel shaky again” referring to the nerves associated with competition. Pontus Tidemand was 0.2s back from Östberg, setting an identical time to Katsuta and Rovanperä.
M-Sport’s Suninen – who endured his second shakedown mistake of the season with a spin in the ruts on his fourth pass in the morning – was 10th quickest, 1.5s slower than his rally leading team-mate and tying with Thierry Neuville.
Neuville ran wide in a couple of places which cost him time. He said: “It’s going to be really tough to be honest but it’s nice to be back rallying again. The break was quite long so I’m looking forward.”
Gus Greensmith finished 0.2s adrift of Suninen and Neuville and 1.7s shy of the lead, sharing that stage time with Hyundai WRC2 driver Nikolay Gryazin who was 0.5s behind R5 pacesetter Östberg.
Hyundai debutant Pierre-Louis Loubet was 3.4s behind early leaders Ogier and Lappi in his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, which made him slower than all of the WRC2 runners.
Jari Huttunen leads WRC3, setting an identical time to compatriot Suninen and fellow Hyundai driver Neuville. Oliver Solberg is 0.1s back in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Results after SS1
=1 Lappi (Ford) 1m17.0s
=1 Ogier (Toyota) +0.0s
3 Tänak (Hyundai) +0.1s
4 Breen (Hyundai) +0.4s
5 Evans (Toyota) +0.6s
6 Ostberg (Citroën) +1.2s
7 Katsuta (Toyota) +1.4s
8 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1.4s
9 Tidemand (Škoda) +1.4s
10 Neuville (Hyundai) +1.5s
