Kalle Rovanperä has made a blistering start to Rally Sweden, winning Thursday night’s superspecial stage by 1.6 seconds over Ott Tänak.
Umeå Sprint kickstarted the second Umeå-based Rally Sweden, and the 3.2-mile section that made up SS1 will be run four times across the weekend in various guises.
Although Rovanperä won in Sweden last year and was quickest on Thursday morning’s shakedown, the reigning world champion isn’t expecting a repeat this time around as he’ll be labored with road sweeping on Friday.
But running first on the road certainly didn’t seem to hamper him on the opening stage as he set a pace none of his rivals could match.
“This one was quite OK,” Rovanperä said.
“In the forest some sections were a bit slippy with small, loose snow. Overall quite good, I just didn’t drive so well. We need to be better tomorrow.”
The only other world champion on the entry list, M-Sport Ford’s Tänak, was the only driver able to live with Rovanperä’s scorching run.
“Good stage but ice was already quite broken, so difficult to find much traction,” Tänak said. “But an OK feeling.”
Despite producing what he described as “not the best run” Elfyn Evans produced the third fastest time to trail the overnight leader by 3.1s.
He edged former Toyota team-mate Esapekka Lappi by 0.8s – Lappi sending tongues wagging after a strong shakedown showing but suffering a lively run on SS1.
“I couldn’t restart the car under braking and we locked up into a junction, but that’s how it is when you lock the tires on the ice,” Lappi explained.
A big slide in the stadium section of the stage caused some minor damage to the rear of the Finn’s Hyundai as well.
Thierry Neuville’s Rally Sweden is likely to be compromised by illness, and he could only manage the fifth fastest time on SS1 – five seconds off the pace.
“I was maybe too careful but… I don’t feel the grip to be honest,” said a meek and unwell-sounding Neuville.
“Not a great stage for us but it’s only the first one.”
On his first competitive stage as a manufacturer-registered Toyota driver, Takamoto Katsuta was sixth fastest, 5.6s off the pace, but 1.1s clear of Hyundai returnee Craig Breen.
“I struggled a lot with the traction to be honest with you, but look we got through it and looking forward to tomorrow,” Breen said.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the slowest of the works Rally1 drivers and is already over 10s off the rally lead after feeling he was too careful on the brakes.
Jari Huttunen leads the WRC2 class overnight by 0.9 seconds over Ole Christian Veiby, with the top five covered by just 1.2s.
Veiby could’ve gone quicker had his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 not dropped down to three cylinders at the very end of the stage. He edged Oliver Solberg by 0.1s while Emil Lindholm and Sami Pajari shared the fourth fastest time, 0.2s down on their Toksport Škoda team-mate Solberg.
William Creighton set a strong pace on the opening test to lead Junior WRC by 3.4s over Diego Dominguez.
