Sébastien Ogier has taken an early lead of Rally Japan, winning Thursday night’s opener by just one tenth of a second over Craig Breen.
Kuragaike Park may have been short at just 1.7 miles but held under the cover of darkness it certainly packed a punch as Hyundai WRC2 drivers Grégoire Munster and Teemu Suninen both exemplified on a tight left hander towards the end.
After the compulsory donut, Munster’s escapade was more dramatic as he lost the rear of his i20 N Rally2 and wiped out a park bench – explaining that overheated tires after the donut around the roundabout left him with no grip.
Suninen was more in control but still got a bit twitchy through the right kink that preceded the left hander. The former M-Sport driver nosed the barrier on the outside but then continued on his way.
Aside from Takamoto Katsuta pecking a kerb, there was no such drama within the nine-car Rally1 field – yet ironically given the demanding conditions it was the two World Rally Championship drivers with new co-drivers that set the pace.
Ogier, competing with Vincent Landais for the first time, edged Breen who had James Fulton calling notes instead of the now-retired Paul Nagle.
Ogier confirmed “Vincent is doing a good job” but Breen’s assessment of Fulton’s early performance was, typically, far more descriptive.
“He wasn’t just dropped into the deep end here, he was dropped somewhere into the Atlantic here!” said Breen.
“He probably can’t hear me, we don’t want his head to get too swollen, but he’s done a cracking job so far. I just want him to enjoy it.”
The top four was, intriguingly, all split by 0.1 seconds increments. Ott Tänak was third fastest and stopped the clocks 0.2 seconds slower than Ogier’s Toyota, while Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville was 0.3s slower.
World champion Kalle Rovanperä was fifth, 0.6s adrift, and described his run on the opening stage as “a normal start, nothing special”.
Team-mate Elfyn Evans, who was joint fastest on the Kuragaike Park test when it ran in reverse as shakedown earlier on Thursday, is an early sixth overall, 1.2s off the lead but 0.7s ahead of local favorite Katsuta.
“Everything is Japanese!” he smiled. “It feels very comfortable, but it’s going to be a big challenge. But this one I didn’t expect it to be so tricky, phwoar it’s a proper tricky stage.”
Gus Greensmith is an early eighth overall for M-Sport, 0.3s behind Katsuta but 0.9s clear of Dani Sordo who was the slowest of the Rally1 cars.
“That was pretty difficult and it’s a superspecial,” said Greensmith.
“Even with the lights you couldn’t see anything, they weren’t reaching around the corners. That’s pretty easy compared to tomorrow, so long old weekend.”
Emil Lindholm and Sami Pajari share the lead of WRC2, but Japanese legend Toshi Arai’s weekend is already over.
On his first rally not in a Subaru in 30 years, Arai crashed his Citroën C3 Rally2 and canceled the stage for those behind him. Sadly he won’t restart on Friday.
