Oliver Solberg has crashed out of Croatia Rally only three miles (4.8km) into the first stage of the event, Vodice-Brest.
Driving through a medium-speed right-hander, his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 understeered wide on exit and clipped a bank, which bounced his car off the opposite side of the road and into a forested area.
Spectators immediately ran to Solberg’s aid to try and push his car back onto the road but their efforts were futile, with the Yaris steadfastly stuck on the edge of the steep bank.
Toyota team-mate Takamoto Katsuta was the first driver to pass Solberg’s stricken car.
“When I saw Oliver off, I just backed off,” said Katsuta. “It does not make sense to make a mistake myself also, so just to see how it’s going as a driver and decide if I need to push or not.”
Solberg will miss 122 of the 126.8 kilometers of competitive mileage of Croatia's opening day – which also robs him of valuable asphalt driving ahead of Rally Islas Canarias in two weeks' time
Championship leader Elfyn Evans leveraged his position opening the road to go fastest on the first stage, 8.1s up on Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans.
While some of that was from gravel being dragged onto the road, Pajari also conceded his driving was to blame for the size of the gap.
“It’s still quite tricky, some pollution here and there,” said Pajari. “Of course it’s easier for Elfyn but I’m not happy with my driving. Maybe it’s second fastest so far but I need to improve…just somehow switch off the brain and go.”
Both M-Sport drivers went for an alternative tire strategy to the rest of the field, picking four softs and using them all on the opening stage.
It worked wonders for Jon Armstrong, who holds third place overall after going 9.5s off Evans’ benchmark time.
“It didn’t feel like it was such a good run but it seems like maybe I was carrying quite good rhythm,” said Armstrong, who is only 1.4s behind Pajari in second. “The stage wasn’t actually too polluted, just starting to get a little bit polluted in some areas but definitely better than it could have been.
“For sure it’s on the limit with the soft in there, not really understeer just a real lack of precision towards the end. Let’s see what the wear’s like but were have two hards in the boot.”
Adrien Fourmaux is the lead Hyundai in fourth, 10.8s off the pace, with Katsuta a further 2.9s behind in fifth overall.
The remaining Hyundais are sixth and seventh; Thierry Neuville admitted he’d been spooked by seeing Solberg’s car off the road, while Hayden Paddon was struggling with the consequences of running as the Rally1 car on the road.
“I was a bit disturbed when I saw the tree angle and the car off the road,” said Neuville. “We didn’t have the information so I was a bit lost after that.
“Generally fighting the same issues as before. Not great but I feel like we can make it better throughout the day. Maybe I should have taken one more [soft tire].”
Hayden Paddon suffered most from pollution covering the road as drivers ahead took corner cuts
Paddon said: “You expect it to be dirty but it just makes it so hard to drive the car, the pace notes don’t work and then you come into the corners and then you just completely lose the front of the car. With that your confidence completely goes out the window. The conditions don’t make it easy.”
McErlean set exactly the same stage time as Paddon to tie for seventh overall, 20.2s off Evans’ stage-winning time.
Nikolay Gryazin leads a hotly contested WRC2 category, pipping Monte Carlo winner Léo Rossel but a mere 0.1s. His older brother and Gryazin’s Lancia team-mate Yohan Rossel was third-fastest, one second further behind.
Emil Lindholm, the 2022 WRC2 champion, has already lost over a minute with a front-right puncture on the opening stage, clipping a solid object when cutting a corner.
