Oliver Solberg set the fastest time on Croatia Rally’s shakedown test, besting Toyota team-mate Takamoto Katsuta by 0.3s – though running was disrupted due to spectator issues more than once.
Gravel was pulled into the racing line by the first Rally1 cars, creating degrading road conditions that made significant improvements on second and third passes tricky.
“I’m laughing because it’s gravel everywhere after thinking: this stage will be very clean,” remarked Andreas Mikkelsen, who was the third-fastest WRC2 driver and a second off category pacesetter and fellow Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver Eric Camilli. “Seems like everyone is trying to find the little gravel they can.”
As second car into the stage on the first pass Solberg was a key beneficiary. Though the character of the shakedown stage isn’t considered widely representative of the roads on the rally itinerary, gravel being dragged on the line is expected to be a recurring theme.
Loose gravel coating the roads for later runners is expected to be a factor during the rally
Solberg hopes to use the cleaner road to get used to circuit-like driving with the GR Yaris Rally1, something he has no competitive familiarity with.
“It can be whatever [conditions] for me, it doesn’t matter,” said Solberg.
“Honestly I know the car very well when it’s tricky conditions, so maybe that would be better for me. But it would also be important this weekend to have racing conditions to learn the car for Canaries and all these rallies, so it could be important to be get up to speed with the car.”
There were multiple stoppages to shakedown due to spectators in unsafe positions; much of the Rally1 field was left queuing at the start as the clock ticked towards the 1pm cutoff for P1 crews.
But only Katsuta and championship leader Elfyn Evans improved on their final pass, Katsuta finding half a second and Evans a mere two tenths to secure fourth on the timesheets behind Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai.
Neuville is still looking for his first podium of the season: “It will be a bit of a surprise for us to see where we are after the first couple of stages,” he said.
“I think in stages two and three conditions are not in our favour,” he added, referencing gravel which lines the edge of the road on those tests. “We will work a bit on the car now and throughout the weekend we need to find the feeling and the performance that’s needed to be fast here.”
Adrien Fourmaux completed the top five, half a second behind Evans and 0.7s up on Hayden Paddon, the Kiwi making his second outing of the season with Hyundai and feeling much more confident aboard the i20 N Rally1 compared to the Monte Carlo Rally.
“It feels like a while since Monte,” said Paddon. “Obviously very different stages, much more up my alley. I’m feeling much more comfortable with the car so just got to get to grips with it. For sure road position won’t help tomorrow but we have to play the long game over the whole rally.”
Sami Pajari was the last Toyota in seventh, 0.1s behind Paddon and ahead of M-Sport duo Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean: the Ford pair were separated by 0.4s on shakedown.
Armstrong is the incumbent winner of Croatia Rally, taking the spoils in ERC last year
“It’s nice to be coming to a rally as a winner from the last time,” said Armstrong, who was victorious in Croatia on its one-off European Rally Championship appearance last year. “It would have been easier if it was the same route as last year. There’s still some really good stages but definitely more smooth stages as well, where you have to manage the tire a bit more.”
Camilli led home an extremely competitive WRC2 field on shakedown, half a second ahead of last year’s Sardinia winner Roberto Daprà. Mikkelsen was tied for third-fastest time with Japan WRC2 winner Alejandro Cachón, who in turn were 0.3s faster than Yohan Rossel’s Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale.
