Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera (above) came out on top of a thrilling, back-and-forth battle with Hyundai ace Thierry Neuville to lead WRC Rally Estonia after Friday’s fast-paced opening leg.
Just 3.0s separated the dueling duo after 82.88 miles of competition on lightning-fast gravel roads around Estonia’s second city Tartu, host to round eight of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship.
Hyundai i20 N Rally1 driver Neuville was quickest out of the blocks and outpaced his Finnish rival on all three of the morning’s stages to build a 6.8s advantage at the leg’s mid-point service. But the tables were turned in reigning WRC champ and current points leader Rovanpera’s favor on the repeated loop later in the day.
The Toyota GR Yaris Rally 1 driver posted a brace of benchmark times to reel Neuville in, snatching the top spot in the 10.62-mile Mustvee 2 stage. Neuville pulled back a single tenth in the following test, but the Belgian was ultimately no match for Rovanpera in the 4.72-mile Neeruti finale, which was tackled only once.
“It has not been such a bad day overall,” said 22-year-old Rovanpera, who’s gunning for a third straight Rally Estonia victory. “I am a bit disappointed that I lost a bit of time going wide in one corner [in the final stage], but it was not so bad. I tried to push a bit, but in the first pass conditions it’s not so easy.”
Esapekka Lappi’s Hyundai was put at a power disadvantage when he “jumped too far” in the day’s opening stage, causing the car’s hybrid unit to cease working. Repairs were made in service and the resurgent Finn fought back to claim third overall, leapfrogging Elfyn Evans’ Toyota in the penultimate stage. He headed the Welshman by 2.7s at the end of the leg.
Teemu Suninen was all smiles after successfully completing his first day behind the wheel of a Rally1-specification Hyundai. Although he was, at times, left speechless by the raw speed of the car, the 29-year-old Finn set a respectable pace and trailed Evans by 16.9s in fifth overall.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was sixth in his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally, a top-three time in the Raanitsa 2 stage being the highlight of his day. Behind the Frenchman, Takamoto Katsuta lacked confidence in his GR Yaris and languished a further 16.7s back in seventh overall as a consequence.
Loubet’s teammate and home favorite Ott Tanak would have been leading the rally on outright pace. However, the Estonian star was dealt a five-minute time penalty prior to the rally start because his M-Sport Ford team carried out an engine change after the Puma developed an issue during Thursday’s shakedown.
In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Andreas Mikkelsen ended Friday with a solid advantage after early leader Oliver Solberg retired with car damage.
Norwegian Mikkelsen was no match for flying Swede Solberg over the first three stages and languished 13.5s adrift of the youngster at the mid-leg service in Tartu.
But the tables were turned early in the repeated afternoon loop when Solberg, driving a Skoda Fabia RS similar to Mikkelsen’s, pulled over with broken suspension after clipping something on the side of the road in the Peipsiaare 2 test.
That promoted Mikkelsen to the class lead, a position he held despite an overshoot in the day’s final stage to reach the overnight halt 17.6s clear of second-placed Fabia man and WRC2 Challenger leader Sami Pajari. Gus Greensmith’s Skoda sits between them on the overall leaderboard, but the British driver has elected not to count Estonia as one of his seven WRC2 points-scoring rounds.
Saturday’s second leg is centered around the ski resort of Otepaa. Double runs of Maekula (6.38 miles) and Otepaa (6.93 miles) are followed by a service halt before the action resumes with Elva (7.29 miles) and Kanepi (10.24 miles), both of which are driven twice. An encore of the rally-opening, 2.08-mile Tartu super special stage rounds out the day.
WRC Rally Estonia, leading positions after Day One, SS8
1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 1h12m22.2s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3.0s
3 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +12.2s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +14.1s
5 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +33.8s
6 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Nicola Gilsoul (M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1) +48.8s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnson (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m03.6s
8 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 leader) +4m07.4s
9 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +4m14.1s
10 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +4m25.0s
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