The leader of the World Rally Championship, Elfyn Evans, has demonstrated impeccable driving in the challenging variable conditions of Rally Japan, leading the competition ahead of his teammate, Oliver Solberg, from Toyota.
Evans took advantage of starting first on the road, while the rain from the previous night had left several stages in the morning with damp areas that could surprise the crews.
Solberg initially took command of the rally by winning the new opening stage Asuke, but Evans regained the advantage with a great performance in the second stage, the Isegami tunnel test. Despite the warm and humid temperatures, the conditions of the stages progressively worsened with the passage of the cars, creating a long muddy section in the middle of the test.
Evans, however, was 7.5 seconds faster than Solberg before winning the last stage of the loop, allowing him to open a 17.7-second lead over his Swedish teammate.
When asked if his position on the road was an advantage, Evans replied: “I think so, especially in this middle part of the Isegami test, which got very narrow with some small cuts, altering the road conditions, and this kind of situation costs time to those coming behind”.
Solberg admitted he had been too cautious in stage 2, which cost him the lead to Evans, but could do nothing to recover the lost time in stage 3 of Inabu/Shitara 1, where he was forced to brake to avoid deer appearing on the road, which made him lose confidence afterward.
“It was a long fast straight and I turned at a corner where there were four deer on the road,” Solberg said. “I braked and, in Sweden, I usually know how deer behave. I have a sense of whether they move left or right, but here they move everywhere. I had to go left, and they did too, so then I had to go right and one of them moved to the right”.
“I lost a lot of time, about six seconds, and then I lost a lot of feeling with my driving. I hope we can make up time”.
Solberg finished the morning loop 0.5 seconds ahead of the previous winner of Rally Japan, Sébastien Ogier, who struggled to start sixth on the road. Ogier was 0.9 seconds off the lead after the first stage, but in the second he lost 16.7 seconds to Evans as the road conditions worsened.
“Clearly it’s not ideal, and on tarmac, it’s never easy to regain time, so we’ve lost ground to Elfyn and we’ll have to push very hard to catch him,” Ogier said.
“But we’ve only done a small part of the rally, so we’ll keep trying. We haven’t been able to do much. We could have taken more risks and gained a few seconds, but maybe we would have ended up off the course, so it was very complicated. I’m not the type of person who gives up, so I’m sure I’ll keep trying and pushing harder from now on”.
Thierry Neuville was surprised to lead Hyundai’s offensive, ahead of two Toyotas in fourth place, 28.6 seconds off the lead. The 2024 world champion had anticipated a difficult Rally Japan after a frustrating shakedown. However, the Belgian found a reasonable feeling behind the wheel of his i20 N.
“It’s a nice surprise and we didn’t expect it. First of all, we didn’t expect to have such a good feeling in the car and in the balance, and we didn’t expect to be in a little fight with the Toyotas. Nobody expected that,” Neuville said.
“I didn’t really make any changes after the shakedown, but I felt comfortable after the first corner so I continued”.
The Toyota driver Sami Pajari arrived at the midday service in fifth place and was lucky not to suffer a puncture after hitting a loose drain cover in the opening stage.
It wasn’t the rally start that Takamoto Katsuta and his local fans had hoped for, as a mistake at the opening stage translated into a high cost. The Japanese driver slid in a damp area and hit a bank, causing a puncture in the rear left.
The puncture only made Katsuta lose 6.7 seconds in the stage, but it had a secondary effect, as he was forced to replace the damaged soft tire with a hard one under the wet conditions. As a result, he lost 25.9 seconds in stage 2 and lost confidence in his pace notes. This was reflected again in an off on the grass in stage 3 that he was lucky to recover from.
“It’s still just the beginning of the rally, but this is one of the worst loops I’ve ever had. I didn’t expect that slippery corner and we suffered a puncture,” Katsuta said.
“I couldn’t trust the pace notes at all and on the last one I had a serious incident, and we’re lucky to be here, to be honest. There’s a long way to go, so I’ll try to make my best effort, but it will be tough for me to recover”.
The Hyundai driver Adrien Fourmaux admitted that his setup was “too aggressive for dry conditions” and he couldn’t take advantage due to the damp sections of the stages. The Frenchman entered the afternoon stage in seventh place, ahead of his teammate Hayden Paddon, who had trouble with an incorrect tire choice as he picked hard compound tires.
The M-Sport-Ford drivers, Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean, also paid the price for choosing hard tires in conditions that weren’t drying completely. The pair held ninth and eleventh positions, surrounding the best WRC2 runner, Nikolay Gryazin.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI