Ott Tänak leads Rally de Portugal after a punishing opening leg on Friday, with simply 7.0sec splitting the Hyundai driver and Sébastien Ogier following almost 150 kilometres of gravel motion.
Tänak, on the wheel of an i20 N Rally1, additionally marked a private milestone by reaching 400 FIA World Rally Championship stage wins — the most recent approaching the day’s last take a look at, Sever / Albergaria. He had earlier snatched the lead from Thursday night time tremendous particular winner Elfyn Evans on Friday’s opener and went on to win 4 of the day’s 10 phases in whole.
Adrien Fourmaux matched Tänak’s early tempo and hit again with two stage wins of his personal to shut the hole to only two-tenths of a second at noon. However his problem ended within the afternoon when he clipped a hidden rock at a hairpin, breaking the front-left steering on his Hyundai and retiring on the spot.
That briefly promoted Takamoto Katsuta to second, but it surely wasn’t lengthy earlier than Ogier moved forward. The Frenchman struggled with an excessively tender set-up within the morning however made modifications and located type within the second loop, pulling 20.1sec away from Katsuta by day’s finish.
“If there have been as many championship titles [as stage wins], it will be even higher,” Tänak joked. “However nonetheless, a pleasant quantity. It has been demanding, particularly the second loop. We couldn’t actually discover the candy spot and had been struggling a bit. However the final two phases had been clear, in order that’s good.”
Kalle Rovanperä made it three Toyotas within the prime 4, ending the day simply 1.2sec behind Katsuta. The 2-time world champion admitted the floor felt extra slippery than anticipated however is now in place to eat into Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans’s championship lead — with the Welshman down in seventh, behind defending champion Thierry Neuville and Sami Pajari.
Neuville was fortunate to keep away from harm after hanging a financial institution on SS2. He recovered to finish the leg simply 4.4sec behind Rovanperä, whereas Evans, burdened with road-opening duties, struggled for traction and slipped again to greater than a minute off the lead tempo.
Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean positioned eighth and ninth respectively for M-Sport Ford whereas Oliver Solberg led WRC2 and rounded out the highest 10.
There was disappointment for shakedown pacesetter Mārtiņš Sesks, whose day unravelled early with a wheel change on SS2. His troubles worsened when he picked up a three-minute time penalty later within the leg.
Saturday’s route options seven extra gruelling phases, protecting 122.92 aggressive kilometres — together with two passes by way of the long-lasting Amarante take a look at.
