TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team occupies the top three places after the first full day of Rally Japan with Sébastien Ogier leading Takamoto Katsuta and Elfyn Evans.
After Thursday’s short opening stage, crews faced a trio of familiar yet demanding stages in the forest-covered mountains to the east of Toyota City, each to be run twice either side of mid-day service.
Ogier went fastest in the morning’s first stage (Inabu/Shitara) to take the lead, only for Katsuta to be quickest in the following Shinshiro test and move to the front of the order. It was Evans who then took the stage win through the famous Isegami’s Tunnel, while Ogier ended the morning in the lead by just one second over Evans and 1.7s over Katsuta.
Kalle Rovanperä had led the rally overnight but his championship hopes took a hit in the morning’s second stage when he ran wide and damaged his car’s left-rear suspension. He was able to make a fix on the road section that allowed him to reach mid-day service, but more than five minutes were lost.
Ogier won the first two stages of the afternoon loop to extend his lead, ending the day with an advantage of 7.9s over Katsuta. Evans, who took another stage win in the second pass of Shinshiro, is just 2.3s further back.
Driving Rally Japan in Rally1 machinery for the first time, TGR-WRT2 driver Sami Pajari had been rounding out a 1-2-3-4 in the overall standings before narrowly slipping behind Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) by just 0.3s in the last stage of the day.
Oliver Solberg is the lead Rally2 driver in his Printsport-run GR Yaris in ninth overall, one place ahead of WRC2 leader Alejandro Cachón of Teo Martín Motorsport.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“This has been a very good day for most of our drivers, and a close and exciting fight at the front between three of them. Unfortunately Kalle dropped away from that fight this morning after just running slightly wide, which is all that it takes on this rally to hit trouble. His best chance now will be on Sunday to score some points and try to stay in the fight until the final round. Taka is doing very well and wants to win his home rally, and Seb and Elfyn are fighting for the championship, so the pace is very high between them. Sami also has done a great drive so far and is not far away from the top three.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“We had a decent start this morning. There were some changeable conditions like we expected and everything was quite close, but the feeling was OK. Then it wasn’t the best afternoon for us, especially in the opening stage of the loop where we seemed to give away a bit of time in a couple of sections. Otherwise we have not been too far away but we can’t be completely happy tonight. Still, there is a long way to go in this rally and we will keep trying everything.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“The feeling was not so good on the first stage this morning, which was kind of expected with such twisty roads, but on the next stage it was starting to feel pretty good. Unfortunately we went a bit too fast into one corner – the pacenote was probably too optimistic – and we slid into the rail on the outside and broke the suspension. We could make a creative fix to get back to service where the team was able to repair it properly. We tried a few things with the setup this afternoon and the feeling was getting better, and we’ll keep pushing tomorrow and see what we can gain.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“I think we can be pleased tonight, it’s been a good day for us. This morning we had a decent rhythm but there was not much between the top drivers. Then we were able to have a bit more of a push this afternoon when we had a bit more certainty in the pacenotes and the grip conditions for the second pass. It’s nice that we’ve been able to build this small gap: it’s not much, but always better to be in this position. There’s a long way to go but for now it’s been the start that we wanted to the rally.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It’s nice to be at the end of Friday in second place. It has been a bit up and down in terms of the feeling for me: on some stages I was quite happy with the car and in some stages I was struggling for some reason, but we will look into this with the team tonight. Also, on the second pass of Isegami’s Tunnel I didn’t take much risk in the tricky places, and Seb was able to take some time there. Still it’s a long weekend and I will continue to push where I can; let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“I think it’s been quite a good day overall. It’s my first time here with the Rally1 car and the pace of my team-mates is really high, but we are not so far away and some of the stage times especially were really close to them. Of course, there were also some sections where we were maybe losing a little bit too much time, but the feeling has not been bad and we will try to improve in these areas for tomorrow.”
End of day two (Friday):
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h11m48.2s
2 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +7.9s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +10.2s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +24.0s
5 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +24.3s
6 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m12.3s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m33.5s
8 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m35.9s
9 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3m22.3s
10 Alejandro Cachón/Borja Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3m45.5s
17 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +5m42.2s
(Results as of 17:20 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Saturday is the longest day of the rally, made up of 121.91 competitive kilometres. It takes crews north-east for the new Obara stage plus more familiar Ena and Mt Kasagi tests, all of which will be repeated in reverse order after a tyre-fitting zone at Enakyo Park. A new super special stage in Toyota City rounds out the day.
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