Ott Tänak set a blistering pace on the Arctic Rally Finland shakedown test as several drivers, including Hyundai World Rally Championship team-mate Thierry Neuville, came unstuck in the conditions.
Tänak set a best time of 2m35.4s on his third and final pass of the stage, stopping the clocks 0.7 seconds faster than Neuville who recovered from an earlier error.
Toyota junior Takamoto Katsuta and Hyundai 2C Competition pilot Pierre-Louis Loubet shared the third fastest, 4.4s down on Tänak’s benchmark.
The Vennivaara stage was the first shakedown of the 2021 season after the test was axed from the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally revised itinerary.
While the stage did afford crews an opportunity to bed themselves in for the weekend, several drivers expressed their surprise at the high grip levels on offer.
“It’s really nice, I wish the conditions would be like this in the stages as it was really icy, much better grip than expected,” said Monte Carlo Rally winner Sébastien Ogier.
But the premium grip didn’t result in ultimate grip, as both Neuville and privateer Janne Tuohino found out to their expense.
Tuohino was the first to get caught out, picking up oversteer in his Ford Fiesta WRC through a right-hander and nose-diving into a road-side bank.
Neuville made his mistake on the second pass, losing over 20 minutes as he and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe shoveled their Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC free of the roadside snow.
“I have no idea what we can achieve, for sure we can improve a little bit and try and to have a good weekend in the snow and fight against the Toyotas which will be pretty strong,” Neuville said after his first shakedown attempt.
“But I am looking forward, I had a good preparation and I’m feeling quite comfortable.”
Toyota has been talked up as the favorite for success on Arctic Rally Finland, but aside from junior driver Katsuta going third-fastest, its works cars didn’t hog the top spots on the shakedown stage.
Kalle Rovanperä was the fastest of all by 1.9s on the first pass but reduced his pace on the following two runs, potentially in a bid to save his Pirelli tires for the rally ahead. Indeed, all three Toyotas of Rovanperä, Ogier and Elfyn Evans were around a minute slower than the benchmark on their final shakedown attempt.
Evans suffered a brief skirmish into a snowbank on his second pass that cost him around 10s and ultimately restricted him to just the 12th-fastest time, with team-mates Rovanperä and Ogier sixth and ninth respectively.
Hyundai’s Craig Breen also dropped his pace on his third pass of the stage, but his second run was good enough for fifh quickest, just 0.1s slower than Katsuta and 0.6s faster than Rovanperä.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
On his first weekend in a World Rally Car, Oliver Solberg managed the sixth-best time by going for a late fifth run. That put him 0.5s up on Rovanperä, with his third run having tied him with the Finn, and 1.2s faster than Gus Greensmith, who was the top M-Sport Ford runner – 1.5s up on team-mate Teemu Suninen.
Ogier’s Yaris WRC split the two Fiesta WRCs, with Ogier just 0.1s slower than Greensmith. Evans’s best run was 9.7s slower than the ultimate pace, but he was faster than Tuohino, who recovered from his snowbank excursion to set the 13th-quickest time.
Despite a comedic moment on the second corner of his first shakedown attempt where he reached for the paddleshift gear-changer only to remember his Rally2 car didn’t have one, Andreas Mikkelsen was fastest of the Rally2 runners, outpacing Evans’s Yaris WRC by 0.1s.
Shakedown times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 2m35.4s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +0.7s
3 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +4.4s
4 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (2C Hyundai) +4.4s
5 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +4.5s
6 Oliver Solberg/Sebastian Marshall (2C Hyundai) +4.6s
7 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota) +5.1s
8 Gus Greensmith/Elliott Edmondson (M-Sport Ford) +5.8s
9 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +5.9s
10 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (M-Sport Ford) +7.3s
