TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team’s Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans are both involved in a close fight for the lead following the first full day on the fast gravel roads of Rally Poland, sitting second and third respectively in a top three covered by just two seconds.
After the super special stage that kick-started the event on Thursday evening, Friday took crews north-east from the Mikołajki service park for two loops of three stages, which would be separated by just a tyre-fitting zone rather than a full mid-day service. The loop began with the longest stage of the rally, Stańczyki, at 24.9 kilometres.
Rovanperä, who received a late call-up for this event with limited preparation, was third-fastest in that first stage of the morning. Evans was second-fastest in the next test, which was one of several during the day that had to be either interrupted or cancelled due to concerns over spectator safety. Despite running second on the loose gravel roads for much of the morning, with the road becoming clear for those behind, Evans ended the loop in third overall, only 11.9 seconds from the lead, with Rovanperä just one position and 2.3s further behind.
During the tyre fitting zone, the TGR-WRT crews took a mix of hard and soft tyres, while their rivals mainly opted only for the softer rubber. This worked well in the more abrasive conditions of the second pass, especially in the long first stage of the afternoon, where Rovanperä was fastest to leap into the lead. Evans also moved closer into contention, moving up to second on the following stage ahead of Rovanperä, who unlike his rivals had not had the chance to drive that road at speed in the morning.
With SS7 being cancelled for most of the drivers, a second run over the Mikołajki Arena super special rounded out the day. Rovanperä set the equal fastest time here to end the day in second position overall, 1.8s from the leader Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai) with Evans just 0.2s further back in third.
On his first start at the returning Rally Poland, Takamoto Katsuta eased his way in during the morning before showing improved pace in the afternoon, setting the joint best time in SS8 as he ended the day eighth overall.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“Overall we can be very happy with how our day went because we have two cars in the top three. Both Kalle and Elfyn have been driving really well today. Kalle’s preparation for the rally was very limited, and he hasn’t been able to study the stages much beforehand. It’s not easy for him to push the limits when he doesn’t know the stages so well, but we could see this afternoon that he was feeling much more comfortable on the second pass. It’s also been a good day for Elfyn in the context of the championship. For Taka it was a struggle at first but we could see he was more confident this afternoon. As I said before the rally, the target was to have two cars on the podium, so it’s been a good start, but we know there’s still a long way to go. Unfortunately, we have seen some stage cancellations today, and I hope that tomorrow can run smoothly, safely and be enjoyed by everybody.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“This morning everything was quite tricky for me given our preparation, even more than I was expecting. With the preparation time we had, and after such a long time without driving a fast rally or even a test, it’s not been easy to make good and precise pacenotes for these speeds. I just tried to find a pace where I was comfortable and to finish the loop without any mistakes. Then in the afternoon we could show our pace straightaway and it was more enjoyable. I think we did all we could, it was a clean day with no mistakes and our position is not bad tonight considering everything. Tomorrow I hope we can be stronger in the first pass and let’s see what we can do.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“We had quite an OK start this morning, getting used to these high-speed stages. The grip was quite changeable and difficult to judge, but everything was working fine in the car and the speed was OK considering the road position and the cleaning that we had to do. This afternoon was pretty similar but we were able to get closer to the front, and on the whole it’s been a pretty clean day with no mistakes. Let’s see what’s possible tomorrow – and what the weather does overnight, because if it rains a lot that will obviously make things less straightforward.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“In the morning loop, I was struggling quite a lot. I think I went in the wrong direction with the car setup after my test. It was not really feeling good or consistent, it was hard to have trust and keep a good pace, and we were losing a lot of time. But with the help of the engineers we changed what we could during the day and it started to feel better in the afternoon. We’ve found the right direction, and tonight we can change even more to make it better tomorrow. Our road position might be more difficult if it’s dry, but the weather is uncertain: hopefully for me it rains and that could be better for us.”
End of day two (Friday):
1 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) 59m43.7s
2 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1.8s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +2.0s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +7.5s
5 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +7.7s
6 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +21.3s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +29.8s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +32.3s
9 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +2m15.6s
10 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +2m24.5s
(Results as of 20:00 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Saturday is the longest day of the rally with 124.1 competitive kilometres with the action focused in similar areas to Friday to the north east. A key difference is a return to Mikołajki for a full mid-day service, with a third visit to the adjacent super special at the end of the morning loop.
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