Ott Tänak leads a round of the World Rally Championship for the first time since moving back to M-Sport Ford, but it was Craig Breen who was fastest.
Kalle Rovanperä led the rally by 1.6 seconds over Tänak after Thursday evening’s superspecial with a masterful performance that belied his position of first car on the road.
But on the opening stage of Friday, Brattby, the road cleaning effect was far more profound and Rovanperä could only put up the eighth best time.
“This one was quite horrible like I was expecting, there is no ice base just a lot of snow on the road which is really slippy for us,” he commented.
Thierry Neuville immediately went 4.1s faster than Rovanperä to close to 0.9s behind him overall, even if he struggled himself with cleaning.
“Lots of cleaning in there so I guess Rovanperä was struggling quite hell,” said Neuville.
“For me in some places I couldn’t even see his lines there was so much loose snow. I felt better in the car than yesterday but still not as good as I want to.”
But Neuville’s gains on Rovanperä were firmly put into context when fourth-on-the-road Tänak came through the stage. The 2019 world champion beat the 2022 champion by 8.7s to storm into the rally lead.
However, it wasn’t an enjoyable run: “No good feeling for sure,” Tänak said.
“The stage is really tricky to drive and it’s really messy so it was a big fight on this one.”
But the best was very much saved for last when the last manufacturer driver on the road, Breen, came through.
Breen destroyed Tänak’s benchmark by a mammoth 3.8s, but that wasn’t quite enough to move him into the lead. However second place so early in the rally is a massive confidence boost.
“I missed that feeling, Jesus Christ I missed that,” said an emotional Breen.
“Very, very simply, effortless. Second chance I’m a very lucky boy.”
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi was the third fastest driver on SS2, losing 1.6s to move up from fourth to third overall – 3.9s shy of the lead.
And even as sixth car on the road, Lappi found the going “quite slippery”.
Despite his time loss, Rovanperä still holds fourth place in the standings but only by 0.3s with Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans glued behind him. Neuville is sixth, another six tenths back.
Takamoto Katsuta was quicker than all three drivers ahead of him on Friday’s opener but finds himself a couple of seconds behind in the overall classification – Katsuta surviving a skirmish with a snowbank where an impact at the rear-left briefly threatened to pull his Toyota into the snow.
Pierre-Louis Loubet completes the top eight, 16.1s off his rally-leading team-mate.
