TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team has begun what promises to be a demanding Rally de Portugal with a stage win for championship leader Elfyn Evans in a spectacular opener.
Rally de Portugal marks the first in a trio of hot and rough gravel events in southern Europe, for which the GR YARIS Rally1 is sporting a cool new silver livery.
The action started on Thursday morning with the pre-event shakedown and an important chance to refine car setups before the start. Kalle Rovanperä was quickest after the first and second runs of the shakedown stage and finished up second fastest.
Crews then travelled south from the service park near Porto to the historic city of Coimbra for the start of the rally, which was followed by the opening super special stage in the nearby coastal city of Figueira da Foz.
Evans was quickest by 0.2 seconds over the 2.94-kilometre asphalt stage to take the early lead in front of team-mate Sébastien Ogier. Rovanperä was sixth, only 1.3s away from the pace, just ahead of colleagues Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It’s very nice to be back in Portugal. I have some great memories from this rally myself and it’s been a good one for the team, and the people here have so much passion for rallying. Coming back onto gravel, our preparation was a bit mixed with a lot of rain during our pre-event tests. Now it seems like it will be dry for the rally, but our drivers appeared to be really satisfied in shakedown this morning without needing to make too many changes to the car. It’s good to get cleanly through tonight’s first stage because tomorrow is going to be a long and important day.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s nice to start the rally with a fastest time but we’ve got a long and tough weekend ahead of us. Tomorrow in particular is a long day with limited opportunities to change the car, so it was important to work through a few things in shakedown this morning and get in the best window we can. First on the road will not be the ideal place to start if the stages are dry, but it’s a position that comes with the good results we’ve had recently and we just have to focus on doing the best job we can.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“The feeling is always good starting this event with the great atmosphere and some really good stages, and it’s nice to start with a stage for the fans like this one. The feeling was quite OK in shakedown and we were working to try and find something to make it even better. Friday here is always tough and this year it’s an even longer day than usual, so it can be a challenging one, especially running second on the road, but we will try our best to push.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s always a pleasure for me to be here in Portugal and starting this rally; the support is amazing every year. We had a clean start in this first stage which was the most important thing ahead of tomorrow. Shakedown was busy as it was my first kilometres in dry conditions with the new gravel tyres for this year, so we were working hard to find the best setup for the rally. Tomorrow will be a long and demanding day for everybody and hopefully we’re ready.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“I’m very excited to be starting this rally. Every year here in Portugal there are so many fans and the atmosphere is amazing, and this first stage was fun. Shakedown was tricky because we were saving tyres and not on the best ones for the slippery conditions, but hopefully the feeling is good tomorrow, because it’s going to be a long day and a big challenge. I will try to do my best to get a good result.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“I was glad to get through this first stage cleanly because I had some trouble in there last year. It’s going to be a long and tough rally but I’m looking forward to it. The feeling was quite OK in shakedown, even if it was not exactly like the real stages and probably a bit more slippery. Tomorrow is going to be important to have a good position for the following days so I hope to avoid any issues while still being fast.”
End of day one (Thursday):
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 2m18.1s
2 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +0.2s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +0.2s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +0.4s
5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +0.6s
6 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.3s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.9s
8 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +4.1s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +4.3s
10 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +5.0s
(Results as of 20:50 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What’s next?
Crews face a marathon Friday, with 15 hours on the road and 10 stages totalling 146.48 competitive kilometres. Staying in central Portugal, four stages around Arganil are driven twice, punctuated with two remote service halts, before two new stages at Sever do Vouga near Aveiro on the way back north to Porto.
