TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver Sami Pajari is fighting for the lead after the first full day of FIA World Rally Championship action in Saudi Arabia, as his championship-chasing team-mates battle for position behind.<\/p>\n
After Wednesday evening\u2019s opening super special stage in host city Jeddah, Thursday took crews northwards into the mountains and deserts for two loops of three stages, split by mid-day service. A loose sandy surface meant that road cleaning would be a major factor, with each car creating a cleaner line for those behind to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pajari, fresh from scoring his maiden podium at Rally Japan earlier this month, drove strongly from the morning\u2019s first stage in the dunes of Al Faisaliyah to make the most of his eighth position on the road. He held third overall through the morning, claiming a stage win in the loop\u2019s final test Khulais.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He then edged ahead of Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) for second place in the afternoon\u2019s first stage, before another stage win in the second pass of the rock-lined Moon Stage was enough to take the rally lead from M\u0101rti\u0146\u0161 Sesks (M-Sport Ford). Unfortunately, tyre damage in an abrasive final gravel stage of the day cost around 10s, dropping him to second once more. After a return to the Jeddah super special rounded out the day, Pajari is 6s from leader Fourmaux overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Running two places further ahead on the road, Takamoto Katsuta had a solid day avoiding major trouble and rounds out a top six covered by 22.9s.<\/p>\n
The three protagonists for the drivers\u2019 championship \u2013 Elfyn Evans, S\u00e9bastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanper\u00e4 \u2013 suffered the most with road cleaning given their positions at the front of the road order.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Al Faisaliyah was the least severe in this regard and Ogier was able to set two third-fastest times there and end the day at the head of the trio in seventh overall. Rovanper\u00e4 was running one position behind before he sustained tyre damage in SS4 and conceded around 40s. He managed to move back in front of Evans \u2013 who was opening the road as the championship leader \u2013 for eighth place on the day\u2019s last gravel stage.<\/p>\n
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)\u00a0
\u201cThis has certainly been an interesting day to follow with a lot of things changing from one stage to the next. In a way it\u2019s somehow surprising that there wasn\u2019t more drama, because we heard from the drivers after the recce that the roads would be really rough. Our championship contenders were suffering quite a lot today cleaning the road as the first three cars. They\u2019re the best drivers in the world, so they were making some good lines for the rest to follow! Still, they are quite close together and tomorrow the starting order will be a bit different, so it will be interesting to watch. Sami on the other hand has been driving very well and is very close to the lead. Tomorrow will be a longer and harder day, so I\u2019m sure there can be more drama to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
\u201cIt\u2019s been a tough day out there. This morning I was too conservative on the first stage and a bit disappointed to give away so much time. After that, the cleaning effect was more dramatic on the next two stages, and it felt like my pace wasn\u2019t so bad compared to Seb just behind. I think the cleaning was maybe even worse in some places on the second pass of the stages. It\u2019s tough to know how well you\u2019re driving when the road is evolving so fast. But we\u2019re still here and tomorrow we have a longer loop of stages where staying out of trouble will probably be quite tough, but I\u2019ll just stay focused on my own driving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kalle Rovanper\u00e4 (Driver car 69)
\u201cToday has been quite tough, but it\u2019s much the same for everybody. Unfortunately we sustained this tyre damage in the last stage of the morning. We made the right call not to stop and change the tyre, but we still lost quite a bit of time with that and some starting positions for tomorrow, which is not so good. As we have seen today, the cleaning effect is maybe even greater than we thought, so tomorrow can be tough also. There\u2019s still a long way to go though, so let\u2019s see what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
S\u00e9bastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging day like we expected, and with a massive cleaning effect especially in the super twisty sections on the second and third stages of the loop. The first stage of the loop was smoother, so I tried to take the opportunity to push there and gain some time. Maybe we can\u2019t see it in our overall position, but I think we did a really good job today. I don\u2019t think there was anything more we could do in our position. The main target is to be in front of Elfyn and Kalle, but the gaps are still small, so we need to try and keep going tomorrow and try to gain more places if we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
\u201cThis first full day was a tough one as expected. It\u2019s very hot out there but the team has done a really good job to try and make us comfortable. This first stage of the loop in the desert was really nice, with super high speed and big jumps. Otherwise we were just trying to avoid mistakes and the puncture risk, which was quite high this afternoon. I\u2019d like to be higher than sixth but there\u2019s still a long way to go, so we\u2019ll just keep going and see what happens tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
\u201cIt\u2019s been a really positive day for us. To take a couple of stage wins, be consistently close to the top times and even leading the rally at one point is really good. It\u2019s a pity what happened with the tyre on the last gravel stage because we dropped a bit of time there, but we\u2019re still only a few seconds away from the lead. It\u2019s not easy to manage things here, but I tried to push in the sections that felt safe, and be smarter in the tricky places. Tomorrow will be a longer day but it would be good if we can continue like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
End of day two (Thursday): What’s next?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Follow us! ‘;
1 Adrien Fourmaux\/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 1h18m45.3s
2 Sami Pajari\/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +6.0s
3 M\u0101rti\u0146\u0161 Sesks\/Ren\u0101rs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +6.9s
4 Ott T\u00e4nak\/Martin J\u00e4rveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +13.7s
5 Thierry Neuville\/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +14.9s
6 Takamoto Katsuta\/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +22.9s
7 S\u00e9bastien Ogier\/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +44.2s
8 Kalle Rovanper\u00e4\/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m21.2s
9 Elfyn Evans\/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m25.3s
10 Gr\u00e9goire Munster\/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m10.9s
(Results as of 21:10 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit\u00a0www.wrc.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n
Friday will be the longest day of the rally, with 134.34 competitive kilometres to be driven across another two loops of three stages, separated by mid-day service.<\/p>\n
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