Kalle Rovanperä has taken first blood on Ypres Rally Belgium as home favorite Thierry Neuville set just the sixth best time following an overshoot.
Championship leader Rovanperä went for a different tire strategy than everyone else as the only competitor to take any wet compound tires, carrying two hard, two soft and two wet Pirellis in his Toyota – keeping the two wets in the trunk for SS1.
“We were not sure what’s coming and we tried to cover a bit every weather, so that was the choice,” explained Rovanperä.
It wasn’t a totally drama-free run on the opening stage – Rovanperä running potentially too deep into one cut and being told to ‘listen’ by co-driver Jonne Halttunen.
“There is no line for us, all the cuts and everything, the gravel is on the road but not on the right line so it’s really tricky to be fast.”
But fast is exactly what Rovanperä was, seemingly profiting from running first on the road as he went 2.5 seconds quicker than Elfyn Evans to establish an early lead on a weekend where he has a mathematical chance of lifting the World Rally Championship title.
Neuville was expected to be the pacesetter this weekend following a dominant win in Ypres last year, but his opening stage was a disaster as he dropped 10.6s.
The Hyundai had been down on Rovanperä’s Toyota through the splits anyway, but an overshoot into a square-left junction cost Neuville dear.
“Already the road is getting quite dirty and I went straight on the braking, so I had to turn around and there was zero, zero grip, much less than I was expecting. So I lost a lot of time getting back onto the road,” he explained.
Neuville wasn’t the only Ypres expert in the wars though, as 2019 winner and last year’s runner-up Craig Breen had to perform a 180-degree spin after slotting the wrong way at a junction. It was an impressive turnaround but leaves him 14.2s behind Rovanperä already.
“I have zero confidence with the car, to be honest with you,” said Breen.
“I know how fast I should be going but… nervous, when I’m in the cuts I don’t feel the front at all. A bit of work to do.”
Takamoto Katsuta was the other driver to suffer a mishap on SS1, running a bit wide on one of the first corners.
“Just a bit late braking and it was quite slippy on the braking so I just went wide, maybe lost a few seconds there,” he said.
But for everyone else, the problem was simply a lack of grip.
“Dirty already, very, very loose in places. As to be expected to a point but quite loose,” commented Evans.
Rally Finland winner Ott Tänak felt similar, setting a time just half a second poorer than Evans. But his bigger issue was feeling with the car.
“Not at all,” Tänak said when asked if he was feeling comfortable with his i20. “Quite challenging. Yeah, actually quite struggling.”
Esapekka Lappi completes an early 1-3-4 for Toyota, 2.2s down on Tänak and 5.2s off the lead. He admitted it was “a good start from my side” but there were plenty of “grip surprises” through the 7.4-mile Vleteren stage.
Adrien Fourmaux meanwhile was an impressive fifth fastest for M-Sport, 9.2s off Rovanperä’s benchmark on what is effectively his home round of the WRC.
“I just tried to really listen to my pacenotes and there is so many different grip. I was enjoying honestly, I was quite happy because I had no drama.”
“There is nothing I could do about Kalle’s time,” he added, “but it’s OK looking at the other times.”
Gus Greensmith is one tenth down on Neuville after stage one in seventh place, 2.2s up on Katsuta’s Toyota with Breen a further 1.3s behind.
Oliver Solberg was the slowest of the Rally1 cars, 0.2s down on Breen, but that was OK given his rather premature ending to Rally Finland a fortnight ago.
“It’s nice to get through the first stage at least,” Solberg said. “We’re just building step by step now, we’ll see how the rest of the race goes.”
