Rally GB: Day 2Tänak on top on a great day for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing in Britain
The Toyota Yaris WRC occupies three of the top four positions at the end of the first full day of competition on Wales Rally GB, following a great performance in typically difficult conditions. Ott Tänak led from the morning’s first stage and has built up an advantage of nearly half a minute, with team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Esapekka Lappi holding third and fourth places respectively.
Car 8(Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja)
Tänak, who arrived in Britain on a run of three consecutive victories, began the day with a hat-trick of stage wins on the slippery forest tracks of north Wales. In the afternoon he was fastest again on the second passes of the Clocaenog and Brenig stages – despite suffering a puncture on the latter – and ended the day 28.8 seconds ahead of his closest rival.
After making a steady start to the day, both Latvala and Lappi gained performance as the day went on, improving their cars’ setups to suit the conditions. Latvala ended the day only 2.5s away from second place, with Lappi just 4.6s behind that.
Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 7)
“Today has generally been quite good. At first this morning I was struggling with some understeer but we made some tweaks to the dampers and I started to gain confidence. This afternoon, in Brenig, I wasn’t feeling my best and we lost some time, but in Penmachno I got the feeling back and even though it was quite slippery in places, the time was reasonably good. I’m actually really looking forward to tomorrow. Myherin, Hafren, Dyfnant, Dyfi: these are really nice stages. They are wider, more flowing and are better for my driving style.”
Ott Tänak (Driver car 8)
“It has been a very nice day. I think our car’s performance has been really good today. It looks like we have made a good step and even in low-grip conditions we are quite competitive. We are in a good position but there is still a long, long way to go, so we need to keep focused and keep pushing. Tomorrow’s stage should be pretty good for our car so I have a good feeling about it.”
Esapekka Lappi (Driver car 9)
“This morning was a bit of a struggle for me, but we were able to change the setup inbetween stages and that helped, and then the afternoon was more positive. I can’t be totally satisfied but at least we are going in the right direction. We are in a good fight and that’s really nice. The setup is getting better and so is the feeling and the confidence, so that makes it easier going into tomorrow.”
End of day two (Friday):
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) 1h06m04.3s
2 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +28.8s
3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +31.3s
4 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota Yaris WRC) +35.9s
5 Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Ford Fiesta WRC) +38.2s
6 Craig Breen/Scott Martin (Citroen C3 WRC) +48.8s
7 Hayden Paddon/Seb Marshall (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +1m06.4s
8 Mads Ostberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroen C3 WRC) +1m08.4s
9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jaeger (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +1m24.3s
10 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Skoda Fabia R5) +3m08.4s
(Results as of 18:00 on Friday, for the latest results please visit
www.wrc.com)
What’s next?
Day three of this year’s Wales Rally GB is billed as Super Saturday, taking in nine stages and almost 150 competitive kilometres in mid Wales. The itinerary includes two runs over classic stages such as Myherin, Sweet Lamb Hafren and Dyfi. The first crew will leave the Deeside service park at 05:45 and not return until around 19:30, with only a tyre fitting zone in Newtown in the middle of the day.
Car 7(Jari-Matti Latvala, Miikka Anttila)
Ott Tänak
Car 9(Esapekka Lappi, Janne Ferm)
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Quotes:
Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal)
“It has been a very good day. The team has done some brilliant work, helped by the excellent pre-event test here in Wales two weeks ago, where we had very similar conditions to what have experienced today. Last year this rally was not so good for us and using this information we have been able to change things and now the performance looks really strong. There are still two days to go but I think that tomorrow’s stages should be good for us.”