TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team got Rally Poland underway on Thursday evening’s opening super special stage, fielding a revised driver line-up after having to make a change just before the event.
Rally Poland has returned to the FIA World Rally Championship for the first time since 2017, offering fast gravel roads around Mikołajki in the north-east of the country.
Originally part of the team’s three-car line-up for this event, Sébastien Ogier would be unable to take part after being involved in a road traffic collision during the reconnaissance on Tuesday morning.
Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais along with two occupants of the other vehicle involved were taken to hospital for checks, which thankfully showed no serious injuries. Ogier remained under medical observation on Tuesday night before being discharged the following morning and returning home to rest. The wellbeing of all those involved has remained of the upmost priority for TGR-WRT, which sends its best wishes to all. As is standard practice, reconnaissance is carried out in road cars: speeds are always monitored by the organisers and were within the limits set.
The team was able to call upon Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen to step in for their team-mates on an event that was not originally part of the Finns’ partial programme this season. They undertook an intensive recce schedule to prepare for their first ever start in Poland, with Thursday’s shakedown close to Mikołajki their only chance to test the GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID on Polish roads before the rally began.
The first competitive stage took place in the evening with a short side-by-side super special adjacent to the service park. Elfyn Evans set the third-fastest time, just 1.3 seconds off the pace, with Takamoto Katsuta only 0.3s further back in fourth. Rovanperä was seventh, just 2.1s away from the overnight lead.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It’s nice to be back in Poland but unfortunately our plans had to change quite rapidly this week after the accident that Seb and Vincent had during the recce. Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, but Seb was not cleared by the doctors to start the event as he needs to rest, and we had to work quickly on a revised plan. Our best option was to get Kalle to Poland: of course he has not been able to do the usual preparation with videos and testing, but we explained that we needed his help and he understood and wanted to support the team. So we’re very grateful to him and Jonne for thinking about the team. I told Kalle we don’t expect him to win but that with his natural driving he can score good points and help the team alongside Elfyn and Taka. As a team we always race to win, but if we can get two cars on the podium and outscore our competition across the weekend, that would be a great result.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It has been a busy couple of days for us. It was good to hear firstly that Seb, Vincent and everyone was OK after what happened. Then I got the call from the team to come here, and of course we want to help the team. It’s not been so easy to prepare everything in a rush. Normally I would have been watching videos of the stages before getting here but I didn’t have the chance, and our only test was three runs in shakedown this morning, but at least the feeling with the car was good at the end of that. It’s nice to see so many fans already today and it’s still going to be a long night for us going through the pacenotes. It won’t be easy but it will be good if we can avoid mistakes and have a clean weekend and try to be fast to help the team as best as we can.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s good to get the rally started tonight and to race side-by-side is always exciting for the fans. We just tried to have a good clean start to the rally. We haven’t been here to Poland for such a long time and there’s a lot of new sections of stage, so we started pretty much with a blank sheet of paper in the recce. In shakedown everything was feeling OK with the car. The stages will be a little bit more technical than the shakedown was, so there might still be some adapting to do. But we’re looking forward to it. We’ll try to enjoy it and see what comes.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It was exciting to start the rally this evening with the super special stage and a lot of fans. This rally will be a big challenge for me as it’s my first rally in Poland. During the recce I saw really high-speed stages and many cuts. It won’t be easy to commit 100 percent straight away, and I think the second pass conditions will be a challenge for everyone. Shakedown was very high speed with not too many corners, so it was hard to judge the pace but I had quite an OK feeling and tomorrow I will try to do my best and enjoy these stages.”
End of day one (Thursday):
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) 1m42.5s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +1.0s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1.3s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1.6s
5 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +1.8s
6 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1.9s
7 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2.1s
8 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +2.7s
9 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +3.7s
10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +5.7s
(Results as of 20:20 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
For the first full day of the rally on Friday, the action moves further to the north-east from Mikołajki for two loops of three stages, which are separated by a mid-day tyre-fitting zone in Olecko. The first stage of the loop, Stańczyki, is the longest of the rally at 29.4 kilometres. A second pass of the Mikołajki Arena super special rounds out the day.
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