Sébastien Ogier leads Rally Islas Canarias at Friday’s halfway point, as the Toyota quintet distanced itself from the chasing Hyundais and M-Sport Fords.
Championship leader Takamoto Katsuta took the early lead of the event on Thursday night, winning the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria superspecial held within the Gran Canaria soccer stadium.
But the reigning world champion rose to the top after the first ‘proper’ stage on Friday morning, outpacing Oliver Solberg by half a second to establish a 0.8s lead over Katsuta.
The middle stage of the loop, Tejeda – San Mateo, was then cancelled “due to more than 100 spectator vehicles being found illegally parked within a protected area” near the stage, leaving over a a two-hour gap between competitive tests.
That break wouldn’t disturb Ogier’s charge however, as the Frenchman was against fastest on SS4 Mogan – La Aldea 1 to open up a 5.9s advantage at the head of the field – winning the test by a healthy 4.2s.
“Not happy with the car in here to be honest, or maybe the tire, but quite understeer-y,” Ogier confessed.
Sami Pajari is the second of the Toyotas, who are all split by just nine seconds in the top-five positions. The Finn, who led over half of Croatia Rally, “couldn’t make the time he was hoping to make”, but his team-mates held a similar frustration.
Elfyn Evans was “surprised” to be second fastest on SS4 and move up from fourth to third overall (0.1s behind Pajari) as the Welshman didn’t have a good feeling aboard his Yaris; and those sentiments were echoed by Oliver Solberg who said he had an “absolutely horrendous” feeling.
Solberg is 0.5s behind Evans in fourth overall, with Katsuta 2.5s in arrears.
“No confidence and no grip whatsoever,” said the Swede. “I don’t know, it was really s***.”
The lead Hyundai is 19.2s off the lead but Dani Sordo is comfortably clear of his two team-mates in sixth place, seven seconds ahead of Adrien Fourmaux with Thierry Neuville another 0.9s further back.
Both Fourmaux and Neuville complained of seeing the Toyota’s lines on the stage but not being able to follow.
A dejected Neuville explained: “They’re really using the racing line… and I can’t. I couldn’t trust the front, the balance wasn’t there, I was really struggling.”
Sordo is showing his team-mates the way, but Hyundai cannot match Toyota so far
So why was Sordo happier than his team-mates?
“I take care of myself, not the others,” Sordo said. “I just prepare my car with my people. It’s not my business to say what the others are doing. We are happy with all the setting we are making with the engineer. We are a little bit far [from Toyota] but we are here to work.”
Josh McErlean leads the M-Sport Ford charge in ninth overall but is already 37.8s off the lead, admitting to pulling the handbrake in fourth gear such was the understeer.
Team-mate Jon Armstrong suffered a scare however as he shot off sideways down an escape road early on SS4 and lost 40.6s to Ogier’s fastest time, dropping behind Yohan Rossel’s WRC2-leading Lancia overall.
“I just wasn’t able to have the confidence that the front was going to stay in,” said Armstrong. “There was one long right that tightened and when it tightened the tire sort of gave up and we had to go down an escape road – thankfully it was there. But a bit of a disaster at the moment.”
