Teemu Suninen has stormed into a sensational lead of Rally Italy on the opening stage, going 12.4 seconds quicker than M-Sport team-mate Esapekka Lappi with Ott Tänak only managing the 11th best time.
The opening 7.5-mile Tempio Pausania test had been touted as a tricky start to the rally – a very narrow test that has only been partially used before back in 2005, making it a new challenge for everybody.
Sébastien Ogier outlined the size of the challenge: “It’s very, very slow,” he said, “and I was quite cautious but it’s difficult to do different when it’s so narrow.”
While it didn’t appear to be too rude an awakening for the WRC crews who all made it through unscathed, some did put in stronger performances than others.
The two M-Sport Fords – starting sixth and seventh on the road – were certainly strong and rose above the rest. Lappi managed to edge Ogier and Evans by 1s, describing the stage as “just crazy sometimes” but he couldn’t hold a candle to Suninen who absolutely blitzed the rest.
“I was sending it!” Suninen confirmed. “It’s excellent,” he added when asked how the car felt. “F***, that was a great stage.”
Dani Sordo – on his first event since Rally México in March – was third fastest for Hyundai, 0.1s behind Lappi’s Fiesta WRC. But of the title protagonists it’s the Toyota Yaris WRC’s that made the brighter starts.
Championship leader Evans and Ogier both set a time of 10m13.2s to lie tied in fourth with Kalle Rovanperä 1.2s back from his team-mates in sixth, describing the stage as “for sure the trickiest stage I have ever done, there was zero grip all the time.”
Thierry Neuville was 4.9s down on title rivals Evans and Ogier with reigning World Rally Champion Tänak was the biggest loser, some 9.6s slower than team-mate Neuville despite commenting he had a “clean stage so all OK.”
Neuville suspected the longer wheelbase of his Hyundai wasn’t helping him on Rally Italy’s opener: “I had a good stage, but the car is too unstable in this condition, it always skids around so I did my best,” he said.
Hyundai junior Pierre-Louis Loubet muscled his i20 Coupe WRC ahead of Tänak but just to the tune of 0.1s, with 0.5s separating the cars from tenth and 13th, with With WRC2 leader Adrien Fourmaux putting his Ford Fiesta Rally2 in an incredible eighth overall, capping off a hugely successful start for M-Sport.
WRC3 leader Oliver Solberg put in the seventh quickest time in his Škoda Fabia, faster than Neuville.
Loubet is tenth and Tänak 11th ahead of Takamoto Katsuta and Gus Greensmith. Greensmith was just 0.4s slower than Tänak and 0.2s down on Takamoto Katsuta who fely a “strange feeling in the car.” But Greensmith, whose Fiesta was sporting some rear-left damage, could’ve been even quicker.
“I had an overshoot on one of the junctions,” he confessed. “There was just too much information in my notes, so I completely missed it so yeah, carry on.”
Results after SS1
1 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) 9m59.8s
2 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +12.4s
3 Sordo (Hyundai) +12.5s
4 Evans (Toyota) +13.4s
= Ogier (Toyota) +13.4s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +14.6s
7 Solberg (Škoda) +16.8s
8 Neuville (Hyundai) +18.3s
9 Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) +24.5s
10 Loubet (2C Competition Hyundai) +27.8s
