News and Quotes SS2

As night fell a legendary stage in Czechia awaited the crews as their final challenge of the opening day of this year’s Central European Rally: the 11.78km Klatovy stage – a fast, sweeping triangular circuit of open roads reminiscent of the original Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Despite missing the front right bodywork from his car, points leader Thierry Neuville set a strong time as first car through, outpacing his Hyundai team mate and title rival Ott Tänak. The fleet of Toyotas followed on behind led by eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier, who holds the overall lead from Neuville by just 0.9 seconds at the overnight halt with Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen holding third. In WRC2 there was elation and catastrophe for Yohan Rossel. Before he entered the stage the Frenchman discovered that his victory in the previous event, Rally Chile, had been upheld and that he was competing for the championship title. However, in a must-win scenario he went off the road and almost rolled, causing damage to his tyres and losing more than half a minute to title rival Oliver Solberg.

#11 Thierry Neuville (BEL) / Martijn Wydaeghe (BEL), Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“I can’t be happy to be honest, I took off the aero on the front right by stupidly touching a straw bale. I didn’t know but obviously it will handicap me for the whole day tomorrow but let’s see – it wasn’t too much of a disaster. But there are a lot of straw bales and even here we touched some straw bales because the grip is changing a lot and it’s a bit of dirt and the straw bales are never in exactly the same place so it’s very tough but we have nothing to lose anymore (from the bodywork) – it’s gone already!”

#8 Ott Tänak (EST) / Martin Järveoja (EST), Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“Actually a bit more interesting than expected, maybe more grip changes and actually some quite tricky braking so not so easy. We could still see something but it’s kind of light so the lights doesn’t show and difficult to see.”

#17 Sébastien Ogier (FRA) / Vincent Landais (FRA), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“Pretty slippery this stage, quite dusty stage but all okay: nothing special. It’s often like this on a Thursday, tomorrow will be more action.”

#33 Elfyn Evans (GBR) / Scott Martin (GBR), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“Some places really quite low grip and other places quite a lot. Definitely could have done better but I guess everyone could say that. It’s always nice to do some rallying in the dark – it doesn’t happen so often anymore but, yeah, it’s great.”

#16 Adrien Fourmaux (FRA) / Alexandre Coria (FRA), Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid

“It was really dark for us so it was a nice feeling, I always like to drive on the dark. It was quite a slippery stage in some places, the grip was changing a lot.”

#18 Takamoto Katsuta (JPN) / Aaron Johnson (IRL), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“Fucking hell, car is very good. I didn’t push so much but enjoying a lot this car. This car is fantastic, the speed is good. Okay, it was getting dark and dark all the time but still like all the pace note information is going well. I need to be still a bit steady tomorrow because tomorrow will be the biggest day for the rally but car is good so I’m happy.”

#5 Sami Pajari (FIN) / Enni Mälkönen (FIN), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“At the same time it’s really nice and quite demanding. I enjoyed it but obviously there is many places which are quite far from clean or maybe not clean but I mean like perfect so many, many braking points and many corners simply too careful but, yeah, the feeling is quite nice and can’t wait for tomorrow.”

#9 Andreas Mikkelsen (NOR) / Torstein Eriksen (NOR), Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“It was fun! Now is the first time I enjoy driving the car on Tarmac. I changed a lot during my test and it was mind-blowing in there like everything suddenly felt so easy so it was really enjoyable to drive, I really enjoyed it and it didn’t feel like we were pushing because everything was controlled and I just really felt good. It’s a nice feeling. I went my own direction (on setup). Different to Thierry and Ott, I tried to copy them, you know, in the last Tarmac rallies but when you’re not in the car every day you need – maybe you lose a little bit of performance but I need something that I can trust. I made the car very forgiving and that gave me much more confidence and I’m happy. I’m really looking forward to the weekend now.”

#13 Grégoire Munster (LUX) / Louis Louka (BEL), Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid

“It’s difficult, the last part is a little bit more slippery, and it’s like small dust on top of the Tarmac. Not feeling so comfortable with the car right now – it’s still enjoyable but if you want to push in such conditions you really need to be on it and fully trustworthy with the car and we’re not there yet but plenty of stages to go to try and achieve that. On the more dry and good grip parts we have quite a bit of understeer and so you don’t trust the front to turn in and when you need to commit with such neat corners with one anti-cut device you need to trust the front is going to turn and the rear is just going to follow.”

#19 Jourdain Serderidis (GRE) / Frédéric Miclotte (BEL) Ford Puma Rally1 (non-Hybrid)

“Difficult stage, in the night the grip is changing all the time and already it’s dirty in places you don’t think it’s going to be dirty.”

#20 Oliver Solberg (SWE) / Elliott Edmondson (GBR), Škoda Fabia RS Rally2

“I was wide in a few corners, there were some very slippy places where I did not expect. Wow! The car was like bottoming everywhere and it was difficult to find the confidence.”