Sesks fastest on Portugal shakedown

M-Sport part-timer beats the regulars on his return to WRC gravel

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Mārtinš Sesks marked his return to World Rally Championship gravel roads with the fastest time on Rally Portugal shakedown.

Though he has one outing under his belt in 2025 on the snow of Rally Sweden, this is Sesks’ first gravel rally with M-Sport since last year’s Rally Chile, with Safari Rally Kenya not included in his part-time program.

He was one of only three Rally1 drivers – along with fellow Ford Puma driver Diogo Salvi and Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux – to take a fourth run, and this final attempt put him atop the standings on a 3m52.3s.

Sesks had started steadily, indicating he was still working on the setup of his Puma on the earlier passes: “We are trying new things here in shakedown,” he said. “No rush, just a steady go through and learning things.”

Of all the Rally1 drivers Sesks has the least experience, having only contested Rally Portugal once before; the rest of the top-level field has at least two starts to their name.

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Sesks' only other appearance on Rally Portugal was in 2021, in which he won the Junior WRC category

“I have done the rally once with a front-wheel-drive Fiesta in Juniors,” said Sesks. “I thought I would have some knowledge from this but I just remember names of cities and that’s it!”

Rally Islas Canarias winner Kalle Rovanperä was fastest on the first pass and was Sesks’ nearest challenger in the shakedown timesheets, 0.6s behind the pace-setting Ford.

Despite that early speed, the Finn seemed less confident that pace would translate into a performance similar to his all-conquering display on the Spanish archipelago last month.

“I’m sure we will not have the same kind of result or pace here as in Canarias but of course we try our best,” said Rovanperä.

“After our test the feeling is not the easiest in the car yet. I still think we have quite a lot of work on gravel to do but we try our best this weekend.”

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I haven’t driven a single kilometer on the test in dry conditions, so a lot to learn on that side. Sébastien Ogier

Similarly downbeat despite his shakedown pace was Thierry Neuville. The reigning world champion was 0.3s adrift of Rovanperä but when asked if he had the pace to fight at the front, could only say: “We’re gonna find out.”

Neuville continued: “We will focus on ourselves first of all and try to have a good rally. Three days, two different types of condition, very long day on Friday which is usually the roughest as well so we need to get through that day on a decent rhythm.”

Sébastien Ogier was fourth-fastest, 1.7s off the benchmark time. But like Rovanperä he was already doubting whether he’d be able to extract maximum performance out of his equipment, fearing his lack of representative running on the updated Hankook gravel tires would pose a problem.

“I have experience for many things but not experience at all for the tires; most of us don’t have [it],” said the eight-time world champion.

“I haven’t driven a single kilometer on the test in dry conditions, so a lot to learn on that side.”

Ogier’s pre-event test, which you can watch the onboard of on DirtFish’s new Onboards YouTube channel, was held in wet and slippery conditions. But despite having an experience advantage in that condition, Ogier is praying the rain doesn’t fall in northern Portugal this week.

When asked if he was hoping for rain, Ogier replied: ”No, because this tire in the rain, [it is] scary to drive.”

Ott Tänak completed the top five on shakedown, 0.1s slower than Ogier. Championship leader Elfyn Evans was a further 0.2s behind, sixth-fastest.

Josh McErlean put in his strongest shakedown showing for M-Sport thus far, clocking the seventh-fastest time with an effort 2.6s off team-mate Sesks’ benchmark.

Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari in the remaining Toyotas were eighth and tenth, split by Adrien Fourmaux’s Hyundai i20 N Rally1. Oliver Solberg (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) and Gus Greensmith (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) were tied for fastest time in the WRC2 class.

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