TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team’s Sébastien Ogier is just 2.3 seconds from the lead of Rally Chile after an opening day of two halves in challenging conditions.
Heavy rain in the lead-up to the event and low overnight temperatures in the early Chilean spring led to damp, low-grip conditions on the gravel roads for all the drivers through Friday morning’s opening loop.
With the usual disadvantage of running first on the road being reduced by the conditions, championship leader Elfyn Evans enjoyed a strong morning with a stage win in SS3 to end the morning loop in the lead with a narrow advantage of 0.5 seconds over Ott Tänak (Hyundai).
Kalle Rovanperä, running second on the road, had made a strong start by winning the morning’s first two stages, but in the third he ran wide and hit a bank, pushing a tyre off the rim and losing just over a minute.
Ogier, making his 200th start in the FIA World Rally Championship, was not fully comfortable in the morning but finished it in fourth overall, before setup changes on his GR YARIS Rally1 during mid-day service helped him find a better feeling for the afternoon.
Conditions changed considerably for the repeat loop, with the stages drying out and Evans therefore now cleaning a line through the loose gravel for his rivals to follow and seeing the lead slide away. Ogier too, running third on the road, lost some time to the lead in the first two stages of the loop but produced a stunning stage win in the last test to climb up to third overall, only 2.3s behind leader Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai).
After a promising fourth-fastest time in the morning’s first stage, Sami Pajari made the most of his road position to win the second pass of the Pulpería test – his first WRC stage win outside of his native Finland – and end the day up in fourth overall, only 11.2s from the lead. Evans limited the damage of his afternoon’s road sweeping to sit just 1.9s further back in fifth. Takamoto Katsuta rounds out the top six, having also found improved feeling and pace after service, with Rovanperä eighth after conditions restricted his fightback in the afternoon.
Oliver Solberg leads WRC2 in his GR Yaris Rally2 car run by Printsport with a 10.4s lead over his nearest rival, knowing that a win would secure the championship title.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It has been a very interesting day with everything changing quite a lot. In the morning the conditions seemed to be quite good and equal for everybody: damp and slippery, but Elfyn found it to be quite OK and was able to be in the lead. But then in the afternoon it was drying up and our first three drivers had to clean the road for the rest. Seb did a good drive in the end to be third, and it was a good day from Sami too, and Elfyn is not that far behind either. It’s a pity what happened to Kalle in the morning, but we know both he and Taka can be quick and catch up. We’re expecting it to rain through the night tonight, so it could be another interesting day tomorrow.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It was a good start for us this morning. With the moisture in the air and on the road, the conditions were not as bad for us as usual running first on the road, even if there was still some loose gravel in places. The feeling in the car was pretty good after the work we’ve done in Paraguay and between rallies, and it was a reasonably clean morning. Then the afternoon was a big struggle with the cleaning being much worse than in the morning. At the same time, I don’t feel that I did a lot wrong and we’re still in touching distance of the lead, knowing that many things can still happen with the weather this weekend.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“This morning started quite well. I’ve never felt so comfortable on these stages, but today the pace was finally there. We’ve made some progress with a combination of the car setup and my driving; I was doing something differently and it was working well. Unfortunately we went wide in one narrow place, where the braking is always tricky, and lost the rear. It was not a big hit, but enough to push the tyre off the rim and we lost a lot of time. The afternoon was more difficult with more cleaning than the morning. Tomorrow we expect some tricky weather: hopefully if it’s wet the cleaning won’t be too bad, and we’ll push to see what we can get.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“We didn’t make an ideal start this morning. Even after 200 starts, we can still go the wrong way with the setup occasionally and this morning I was missing the feeling and the precision needed for these narrow roads. We knew what we wanted to change in service and things definitely went in the right direction this afternoon, even if the conditions were challenging for the frontrunners. We kept pushing and managed one very good stage at the end which saved the day for us and put us in contention for the lead, so I’m happy with that. Tomorrow could be even more challenging with the rain that’s expected, but we’ll try and continue in this positive way.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“In the morning I was struggling quite a bit as I was lacking the feeling with the car, and it was not easy to be committed on these fast stages. But we changed quite a lot during the mid-day service and I felt much better in the afternoon and the times were improving a lot. It was a pity that we lost the time in the morning, but we’re sixth overall with still a long way to go and maybe some tough conditions ahead. I will just keep pushing and trying to improve.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s been a good day overall. This morning the feeling was not quite there and I felt I could do better, but with some different conditions in the afternoon and some small fine-tuning with the car, I started to feel that everything is coming together. We managed to take a stage win and to be fourth overall, 11s from the lead, it’s a really positive day. I tried to save my tyres in the middle stage of the loop and I probably could have pushed more, because I still had good grip at the end. I’ll try to do my best again tomorrow, when the stages will be more twisty and the conditions could be more wet and muddy.”
End of day one (Friday):
1 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 57m48.5s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.0s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2.3s
4 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +11.2s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +13.1s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +41.0s
7 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +49.8s
8 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m05.0s
9 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +2m27.4s
10 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m35.7s
(Results as of 17:30 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 are generally wider but more abrasive than Friday’s.
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