The first day of competition at the Croatian Rally, the fourth round of the 2023 WRC, goes on file with a Hyundai i20 N Rally1 in the lead. It’s that of Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe, authors of a good day topped off by the special victory that put them in the lead while their main rivals broke a circle.
The first provisional position of the Belgian crew does not count for anything in terms of the final standings of the event, because there is still a day and a half of the race left before the Power Stage, but it is clear that Hyundai Motorsport has the specific intention of paying homage to Craig Breen with a result of absolute importance.
Neuville took the lead on SS2, setting the fastest time while Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanpera broke a rim at the same point in the stage, being forced to change the damaged wheel in order to continue their journey.
At that point it seemed that success could be in the hands of the Belgian, but Elfyn Evans literally changed gears, reducing his gap from the Belgian until he closed the day 5″7 from first place.
A race reopened by the best Evans of the last 2 years, found on the day of greatest difficulty for Ogier and Rovanpera. Tomorrow the Welshman will battle in Neuville hoping to repeat the finale experienced at Rally Mexico last month. But with reversed roles.
Net of a wicked choice of tires on SS6, Ott Tanak finished the day in third place and deservedly so. The Estonian from the M-Sport team had to contend with a steering problem noticed since the transfer from the Service Park to PS1, but he managed to get the better of the beautiful duel with Esapekka Lappi for the lowest step of the podium.
The two exchanged positions between SS6 and SS7, but in the end it was Tanak who got the better of the Hyundai driver and kept the precious result from a World Championship point of view. The talks for the podium, however, are more than open, because Lappi is 3″4 from his rival and there is more than half the race left to go.
Sébastien Ogier instead put on a show. After a brilliant start, the 8-times world champion broke his front left wheel rim in PS2, slipping to eighth position. From that moment on, thanks to better times, he managed to climb up to fifth place, also taking advantage of a mistake in the choice of tires made by Pierre-Louis Loubet and his brand mate Takamoto Katsuta.
Just the Japanese and the French of M-Sport exchanged positions in SS8, with Katsuta who managed to do better than the Frenchman (who had an unspecified problem with a wheel) and overtaking him by just 8 tenths of a second. This means that the Japanese from Toyota is in sixth place, but Loubet, tomorrow, will be able to respond in kind.
Kalle Rovanpera ended the day in eighth position after breaking his left front wheel at the same point as Ogier. The reigning world champion managed to climb from 16th position up to eighth, but without any particular sharp points. The gap between him and the riders preceding him is 47″4.
As for WRC2, Yohan Rossel was the author of an impeccable day. The Frenchman of Citroen Racing built a respectable margin over the first of his opponents, Nikola Gryazin, thus avoiding taking risks in the second part of the day. Between the two are 29″9.
Third position for Nicolas Ciamin, good at regulating Oliver Solberg (Skoda TokSport) at the end of the day. Be careful though, because the fight for second position is open. Ciamin is 7″7 from Gryazin, while Solberg is 6″8 from the lowest step of the category podium.
Unlucky reigning WRC2 world champion, Emil Lindholm. The Finn of the TokSport team lost over a minute in the first 2 sessions of the morning due to a problem with the transmission of his Fabia RS Rally2. Fixed this in the transfer from PS2 to PS3 and Emil is back to achieving excellent times.
Gus Greensmith was also unlucky, as during the morning lap he lost the chance to fight for the class victory having to stop to replace a wheel.
The first stage of Rally Croatia 2023 ends here. The second stage will start tomorrow morning with the SS9, the Kostanjevac – Petruš Vrh 1 of 23.76 kilometres. The first car will enter the test at 7:54 Italian time.
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