Andreas Mikkelsen leads an FIA World Rally Championship spherical for the primary time since 2019 after he accomplished leg one in every of ORLEN eightieth Rally Poland in entrance of Kalle Rovanperä by 1.8s.
Simply 7.7s cowl the main 5 drivers on the finish of an action-packed opening day on Poland’s super-fast gravel roads.
Mikkelsen set the early tempo and stormed into the lead on the Stańczyki take a look at as his title-hunting Hyundai colleague, Ott Tänak – who had led following Friday night’s superspecial – retired with front-end harm brought on by an unavoidable influence.
The Norwegian star constructed a buffer of seven.4s in his i20 N Rally1 Hybrid however got here beneath assault from Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid drivers Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans on the repeated afternoon loop when his late beginning place supplied much less of a bonus on phases already swept away from unfastened gravel.
“I’m pleased with my day,” stated Mikkelsen, who final led a WRC rally in Turkey in 2019. “I used to be too cautious on the primary stage after regroup so we’ll attempt to alter for tomorrow.”
Toyota’s super-sub Rovanperä produced one of many drives of the day, pipping team-mate Evans on the ultimate stage to go the Welshman by two-tenths of a second. The Finn was drafted in to interchange Sébastien Ogier on Tuesday night and even collected two stage wins regardless of having lower than supreme pre-event preparations.
“It is fairly humorous; final night time I used to be watching a [reconnaissance] video on the laptop computer and I fell asleep,” he stated. “I feel we did a superb job at present [considering] the scenario we’re in.”
Evans posted top-three instances for all however two phases and is at the moment poised to shut the hole to title rivals Tänak and Thierry Neuville, whom he trailed coming into this seventh spherical of the season. Neuville, the championship chief, confronted slippery circumstances on road-sweeping duties and ended down in seventh general.
Mārtiņš Sesks made a shocking begin to his Rally1 debut, stopping the clock simply 0.3sec adrift of Mikkelsen’s time on SS2 and holding second general till noon. Driving a non-hybrid Ford Puma Rally1, the 24-year-old Latvian fell to fifth within the afternoon, trailing full-time M-Sport Ford driver Adrien Fourmaux by 0.2s after yielding place to the Frenchman by means of the day-closing Mikołajki Enviornment superspecial.
Grégoire Munster, additionally driving a Puma, ended day one 21.3s adrift of the lead in sixth with Neuville an extra 8.5s behind. Takamoto Katsuta, who struggled to discover a comfy rhythm in his Toyota, is eighth whereas FIA WRC2 frontrunners Sami Pajari and Kajetan Kajetanowicz full the highest 10.
Poland’s Jakub Matulka leads FIA WRC with Armin Kremer forward within the FIA WRC Masters’ class.
Whereas temperatures touched a damp 30°C two stage cancellations meant that tyre put on was not a lot of a priority, even for these working smooth compound rubber.
Crews face seven extra phases masking 124.10 kilometres on Sunday, together with a 3rd move over the quick superspecial stage subsequent to the rally’s Mikołajki base.
