Ott Tanak’s lead in the Central European Rally really lasted the blink of an eye. Thierry Neuville opened the throttle on SS2, the 8.92 kilometer Klatovy, and overtook both the Estonian and Sébastien Ogier, thus becoming the new leader of the penultimate event of the 2023 WRC.
The Hyundai Motorsport driver stopped the clock in 4’14″7, inflicting considerable gaps when compared to the short mileage of today’s second test and the event.
Neuville entered practice at sunset, shortly after Kalle Rovanpera and Elfyn Evans, the two contenders for this year’s world title, setting an excellent time. Behind him was Ott Tanak at 2″2, but the gap was enough to allow the 35-year-old to move to the top of the general classification.
Kalle Rovanpera’s gap was 2″9, thus moving up to fourth place overall, while Elfyn Evans found himself paying dearly for a mistake when braking as he was about to approach a hairpin. The Welshman from Toyota Racing finished wide, losing 7″8 from Neuville and confirmed himself eighth, 10″7 from the Belgian and 4″8 from his title rival.
Esapekka Lappi began his comeback after taking a 10 second penalty in the previous test due to a jump start, an early start at the start of SS1. The fourth time takes him into the Top 10, to be precise in ninth place, ahead of Gregoire Munster in the third Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid.
Teemu Suninen closes the Top 5 with the third Hyundai i20 N Rally1 ahead of the Toyota GR Yaris of Takamoto Katsuta and the Ford Puma of Pierre-Louis Loubet, making its debut with the new co-driver Benjamin Veillas.
Everything changes in WRC2 too. Johan Rossel won the category test and took the lead with his Citroen C3 Rally2 ahead of a pack of 7 Skoda Fabia RS Rally2s. The first of these is from the TokSport team entrusted to Andreas Mikkelsen. The Norwegian + is 3″2 behind the Frenchman, while in third position we find Nikolay Gryazin, another driver of the TokSport team, 1″5 from Mikkelsen. Gus Greensmith, fourth, is eight tenths behind Gryazin, but with the same time there are also Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Nicolas Ciamin.
The first day of competition at the Central European Rally ends here. The first stage will resume tomorrow morning with Special Stage 3, the 13.66 kilometer Vlachovo Březí 1. The first car, the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 number 69 of Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen will enter the special at 9.50 am Italian time.
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