Hyundai has made a strong start to Arctic Rally Finland as Ott Tänak leads team-mate Craig Breen on SS1, but Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä had looked poised to lead before a small mistake.
The opening 19.29-mile Sarriojärvi stage – which will be repeated later this afternoon – represented a tough start to the rally at the longest stage of the weekend and indeed the entire season so far.
Rovanperä was setting some hugely impressive split times, 1.9 seconds ahead of Tänak at the halfway point of the stage before the Toyota driver made what he described as a “stupid mistake”.
“I was stuck in the snowbank for a while so it was a stupid mistake just coming to the junction,” he said.
“I thought I had more time to the junction, went a little bit wide and hit the rear and got stuck in the bank.
“Luckily we got out but we can’t have more mistakes like that.”
Rovanperä estimated that his unscheduled visit into the scenery cost him around eight to 10 seconds, and he finished the stage 10.6s down on Tänak, who came through the stage after him.
But the 2019 World Rally Champion, who leads by 3.6s over Breen, isn’t getting carried away by his ominous pace.
“It’s hard to say it’s perfect, there’s still quite a lot of understeer,” he said.
“It’s a very demanding stage and the conditions are nice so for sure it’s enjoyable but it’s just the first stage. There’s still a long way to go.”
Just as he was on his last WRC appearance on Rally Estonia last year, Breen closely shadowed his team-mate on SS1 but wasn’t happy with his performance given he started what was considered a more advantageous ninth on the road.
“That was s****,” he lamented.
“At this big boy’s game you need to be on it at the first pass and I was way too slow on my notes and just didn’t take advantage of the road I had in front of me.
“I had the perfect car and the perfect road so I’m not happy with that.”
Behind Rovanperä lurks Thierry Neuville who has ensured there are three i20 Coupe WRCs in the top four. He’s 12.4s off the lead but crucially 4.3s ahead of Toyota’s Elfyn Evans.
“Unfortunately we were looking to find the rhythm but it didn’t work all the time but in some places when we found a rhythm I was able to push a bit more,” said Neuville.
Pierre-Louis Loubet is an impressive early sixth in his 2C Competition Hyundai, just 0.7s behind Evans and 1.4s ahead of M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen.
“For the start here it’s not so bad,” said Loubet. “We will see but it’s not a bad start.”
Takamoto Katsuta was eighth quickest in his Toyota Yaris WRC, 2.8s up on reigning WRC champion and early points leader Sébastien Ogier who was hurt badly by running as first car on the road.
Photo: McKlein Image Database
Ogier, in ninth place and already 22.7s adrift of the lead, was correct in his prediction when he said “I don’t think I am going to have a great time”, but he confessed: “I’m happy with my stage, I drove much better than I did in the shakedown.”
Oliver Solberg rounds out the early top 10 on his World Rally Car debut but his stage wasn’t without incident.
When asked what he had learned from his first stage in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, he said: “A lot for sure, it’s very, very tricky.
“My front tires are not so good anymore, they are finished. I had to stop and reverse, I lost 10-12s but OK, I am learning.”
M-Sport’s Gus Greensmith was 11th fastest, 10.7s down on Solberg.
Esapekka Lappi has made a strong start to his first rally in WRC2 since winning the title back in 2016.
Photo: McKlein Image Database
Driving a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5, the Finn outpaced team-mate Nikolay Gryazin by 8s to take an early Rally2 class lead and 12th overall, just a single second slower than Greensmith’s Fiesta WRC.
Toksport Škoda’s Andreas Mikkelsen, the Monte Carlo winner, lies third in WRC2, but reigning WRC3 champion Jari Huttunen is already out of the fight in his Hyundai after stopping just after the halfway mark of the stage with a technical issue.
Emil Lindholm was the third quickest Rally2 car on stage, 9.8s shy of Lappi’s Polo, to establish an early 6.4s lead over fellow Škoda driver Teemu Asunmaa. Triple World Rallycross Champion Johan Kristoffersson is third in the category in his VW.
SS1 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 15m57.8s
2 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +3.6s
3 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +10.6s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +12.4s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +16.7s
6 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (2C Competition Hyundai) +17.4s
Leading positions after SS1
1 Tänak/Järveoja (Hyundai) 15m57.8s
2 Breen/Nagle (Hyundai) +3.6s
3 Rovanperä/Halttunen (Toyota) +10.6s
4 Neuville/Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +12.4s
5 Evans/Martin (Toyota) +16.7s
6 Loubet/Landais (2C Competition Hyundai) +17.4s
7 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +18.8s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +19.9s
9 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +22.7s
10 Oliver Solberg/Seb Marshall (Hyundai) +31.1s
