Ott Tänak has taken the lead of Central European Rally after a mistake by Sébastien Ogier on Sunday’s opening stage, while Toyota rookie Sami Pajari rolled his GR Yaris Rally1 and retired.
Ogier locked the brakes on his Yaris heading into a square left and went off into a field, sliding across the grass until he reached a side road and was able to drive back to the stage.
The mistake cost him 10 seconds and dropped him to second, 1.9s off new leader Tänak. But for Ogier’s team-mate Sami Pajari, the consequences of his own overshoot were far worse.
Coming into a fast left-hander Pajari ran wide and dropped into a ditch between the road and the field. The Toyota was pitched into a roll, with the car landing on its wheels.
When asked by DirtFish what led to the accident, Pajari replied: “I have no idea.
“Okay, I think it’s clear to say that we went wide on the corner, so I guess it’s simply a bit too fast. But I mean, I don’t know why, because there was nothing really that surprising on that specific corner. Simply we went a bit wide and rolled over and finally not even so big damage.
“Anyway, we are fine. So that’s the main thing. But yeah, so not so big damage. So maybe we could continue. But I think in our case, it makes no sense for the moment. Big shame. I’m very, very sorry for the team.
Spoiler alert... Toyota crew ended their Central European Rally run at the side of Sunday's opener
Pajari was sitting in sixth place coming into Sunday
The GR Yaris Rally was relatively undamaged in the accident
Pajari and Mälkönen were left to ponder what to do with the rest of their Sunday
Not so high five... Pajari was caught out by understeer
Inside and out. This was Pajari's final view of a GR Yaris Rally1 in competition this season
Pajari had been running a soft-hard crossover pattern of tire selection but he ruled out tire choice as a contributing factor: “I had a cross, but I had somehow understeer on the corner, but it was the soft tyre on that side, so even that doesn’t make any sense [for] why I had this understeer.”
“It’s stupid to say, but we didn’t have any real mistakes before this, so it was going quite well and I had the feeling that everything is under control, so that’s somehow a big surprise why it ended up like this.”
Loose gravel affecting grip was a common gripe among the drivers on the Am Hochwald test.
Adrien Fourmaux, returning after his Saturday retirement, was first on the road and fastest on the Sunday opener, 2.2s up on Elfyn Evans. Takamoto Katsuta made it a Toyota two-three in the Sunday order.
Thierry Neuville, who retains a slim chance of wrapping up the drivers’ championship today if circumstances align, was afraid to push given the amount of debris being dragged onto the road and was only fourth-fastest – though still 0.2s up on Tänak.
A returning Fourmaux made best use of a cleaner road to win the stage
“If I see the conditions in there, I don’t want to push too much to be honest,” said Neuville.
“Lots of surprises. We had one big slide immediately on the beginning because it was full of gravel. Even towards the end all the anti-cuts have somehow moved and some are even removed, that’s not nice. The anti-cuts have probably been moved by some spectators just a tiny bit and everyone is able to cut so the road is dirty.”
Sunday is already looking difficult for Hyundai: Andreas Mikkelsen lost almost two minutes stopping to change a puncture on the front-left of his i20.
“When I changed I saw there was a small side cut on the tire,” explained Mikkelsen. “S***.”
