TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team made a fast start to Rally Chile on Friday, with Elfyn Evans in the lead and team-mates Kalle Rovanperä and Sami Pajari also close behind.
The GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID posted the quickest time in five out of the day’s six stages in the forests of the Biobío region to the south-east of the service park in Concepción. These roads were fast and flowing yet also particularly narrow and technical, with plenty of loose gravel atop the hard road base.
Sébastien Ogier took the early lead with a rapid time in the day’s first stage, which was then cancelled for the following cars because of spectator safety reasons. Evans went on to win the first stage he drove at full speed in SS2, and took over the lead in SS3 after Ogier ran wide into a bank and had to stop to change a wheel.
Rovanperä was fastest in SS3 and ended the morning in second place, with Pajari rounding out a 1-2-3 for TGR-WRT after making a strong start to his second event at rallying’s top level.
In the afternoon, Evans would concede some time to rival Ott Tänak (Hyundai) but he responded with a faster time in the last test to end the day leading by three seconds.
Rovanperä lost a few seconds with a spin in the first stage of the afternoon but stayed in the top three, 10.1s from the lead. Pajari is just 2.1s further back in fourth place after continuing his impressive adaptation to Rally1 machinery. Ogier won two more stages during the afternoon and is ninth overall, 1m27.9s from the lead.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“Overall it has been a good first day for the team. To be holding positions one, three and four is very good. Seb was the fastest today but unfortunately had to pay a high price for this one mistake. Elfyn drove some really good stages today and this was a very positive start for him after a tough couple of rallies. Kalle doesn’t feel so comfortable in conditions like this, when it’s a hard surface with loose gravel on top, but I believe tomorrow can be better for him. Lastly, Sami had a very consistent day and a good solid performance, which is exactly like we discussed with him before the rally.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“I’m happy to reach the end of the day without losing too much time, considering that I didn’t really have the most comfortable feeling on these roads. The road base is really hard, so you get a bit of a line and some grip here and there, but it’s changing all the time and I have to change my driving a bit to suit this. To be only 10 seconds behind tonight is not so bad: we’re still in the fight and we’ll try to be better tomorrow. The stages are a bit different and there’s going to be new challenges with a lot of tyre management, but hopefully we can have a better feeling.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“The morning was quite short for us after the first stage was cancelled, but it was feeling generally pretty good in the car. The roads were narrow and cambered and quite fast but technical at the same time with a lot of crests and undulations. So they were fun to drive but the grip level was quite low which made it challenging. The afternoon was tougher for us: I maybe didn’t have the best feeling in the first couple of stages, but it was better in the long one to end the day. We’re still in a decent position and hopefully we can improve for tomorrow.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s been a day of what could have been for us. Once again the speed was there, but this one mistake in the third stage this morning probably ruined our chances for a top result this weekend. It was a mistake in my pacenotes, with a corner that tightened more than I thought, and we hit the bank on the outside which gave us a puncture at the rear. Otherwise it has been fun in the car on these nice roads and this afternoon we tried to enjoy it. Tomorrow could be very tough for us running near the front of the road, but like always we will keep fighting.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s been a really good and clean day for us. The stages were nice to drive but the conditions were also quite tricky: the grip level was changing quite a lot and so was the width of the road, so it was not easy to have a perfect flow. Especially for me without much experience, it was not so easy to judge the speed. But I tried to stay calm and not rush too much and I think we managed to do a really solid job with consistent speed and to be this close to the front is really nice. I feel like I know many places where I can improve but the plan is just to carry on the same way tomorrow.”
End of day one (Friday):
1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 58m03.9s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +3.0s
3 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +10.1s
4 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +12.2s
5 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +13.7s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +33.3s
7 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +39.1s
8 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1m02.2s
9 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1m27.9s
10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +2m17.9s
(Results as of 20:25 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Saturday is the longest day of the rally with 139.2 competitive kilometres to be driven across another loop of three stages repeated either side of mid-day service. Located south of Concepción, across the Biobío River and overlooking the Pacific Ocean, these stages include some sections that have not been driven in previous years.
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