Thierry Neuville ended the Friday leg of Ypres Rally Belgium in the lead by 2.5s followed by his Hyundai teammate, Ott Tanak. Elfyn Evans would round out the top 3 after being given a 10s time penalty for arriving at the final stage start a minute late.
The opening day threw up drama from the off, as Kalle Rovanpera rolled his Toyota on SS2 after winning the SS1. The Finn, who had a chance to claim the title this weekend, understeered into a ditch which sent the car into a barrel roll. Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen weren’t harmed, but any chance of sealing the title here had now gone.
With Rovanpera out, his teammate Evans took up the baton as the leading Toyota at the head of the field, The Welshman battled Ott Tanak through the morning as they traded times as neither felt completely comfortable on the winding narrow roads, but Evans would lead going into the afternoon loop.
Neuville was another driver that would lack some confidence in the opening exchanges, but he only shipped 6.5s to the leading pair to run third. Yaris driver, Esapekka Lappi finished the morning fourth overall and had the benefit of finishing the last morning stage in the dry.
The rain that appeared meant that Ford man, Adrien Fourmaux would be jumped due to losing over a minute due to conditions.
In the afternoon, however, it would be Neuville that would make the biggest impression. Some set-up tweaks gave the Belgian the confidence and would be fastest through the subsequent four tests to jump his teammate and Evans.
Tanak would be Mr. Consistent for the rest of the run, never dropping out the top three times, the Estonian would be there to pounce on Evan’s misfortunes.
Despite taking over the lead, Evans’s day would slowly unravel due to putting a single wet weather tyre onto his car due to damaging one of the slicks. This would provide a performance disadvantage, but the bad luck would be hammered home when he received a time penalty for appearing at the final stage one minute late.
Whilst the top three had their cars geared towards a dry set-up, the rest of the field went the other way expecting a lot of rain. Lappi would end the day 23.6s back from the top three and 18.8s ahead of fifth-placed Craig Breen.
Evans and Rovanpera wouldn’t be the only Toyota to hit trouble, Takamoto Katsuta finished the day in 18th due to a transmission problem costing him chunks of time throughout the day.
Day 1 Top 6
- Neuville 49min 50.4s
- Tanak +2.5s
- Evans +13.7s
- Lappi +37s
- Breen +56.1s
- Greensmith +1min 34.5s
