Action began at the FIA World Rally Championship’s only pure winter rally with the pre-event shakedown on Thursday morning in host city Umeå. TGR-WRT drivers Sami Pajari, Takamoto Katsuta and Elfyn Evans all took turns to set the pace, leading after the first, second and third runs of the shakedown respectively, with Evans finishing up joint third-fastest after others completed further passes.

The first competitive stage took place in the evening on the edge of the city over a full-length, 10.23-kilometre test, which began on fast forest roads and finished in a technical spectator arena.

Swedish driver Solberg – arriving at his home event as championship leader – posted the fastest time. Evans was 3.8 seconds back in second place, with Katsuta third and Pajari fourth.

Lorenzo Bertelli, returning to one of his favourite events at the wheel of a fifth GR YARIS Rally1 through the team’s customer programme, rounds out the top 10.

Quotes:

Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)

“It’s a great feeling to be at Rally Sweden: it was always one of my favourite events and all of our drivers really enjoy this rally. This first stage has been a good start for us, but we know that the competition is hungry and it will be difficult to repeat the result we had at Rallye Monte-Carlo. For Oliver, the big challenge will be tomorrow when he’s first car on the road: the first pass of the stages could be fine, but the second loop – when the lines to follow are narrower and the grip can be lower – will be critical. But all of our drivers are feeling good and up for the fight.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)

“It was maybe a bit of a conservative start for us in this first stage. The grip was higher than anticipated and I wasn’t using all of it, but we’ll work to improve this for tomorrow. The conditions on the stages are looking good again this year. We had a bit of fresh snow falling during the recce and this could make things challenging tomorrow, but let’s see how it goes and we’ll give it our best shot like always.”

Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)

“It’s an incredibly special feeling to be starting my home rally in Sweden with so much support. This first stage is a fun one to start the rally in the dark. It’s quite technical and easy to make a small mistake, but it was a good start. Generally, the roads and the conditions look amazing so it’s going to be a proper winter rally. There could be some loose snow for us first on the road tomorrow, but we’ll just do our best.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)

“This first stage is always tricky. You need to be committed straight away but you can lose a lot of time from a small mistake. It felt like the grip was getting worse, like it did last year, but tomorrow will be a bigger day. There’s less snow than usual on the stages this year but a good ice base. It’s quite a different feeling: even though the stages are mainly the same, with smaller snowbanks it’s wider. But I’m looking forward to it and will do my best.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)

“This first stage wasn’t perfect for us but it’s always a bit of a special one in terms of character, and we’ll keep pushing tomorrow. This year there’s a little bit less snow on the stages, but still proper ice conditions and a proper winter rally. To have the fastest time on the first pass of shakedown was nice to see, and the feeling is really good in the car. We’ll do our best and hopefully we can be on the podium.”

End of day one (Thursday):

1 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 5m53.1s

2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +3.8s

3 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +4.4s

4 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +5.6s

5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +6.7s

6 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +7.9s

7 Esapekka Lappi/Enni Mälkönen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +9.1s

8 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +15.7s

9 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +18.2s

10 Lorenzo Bertelli/Simone Scattolin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +26.1s ...

(Results as of 20:00 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?

Friday will be the longest day of the rally, featuring 124.88 competitive kilometres. Most of that is driven across two loops of three familiar stages – Bygdsiljum, Andersvattnet and Bäck – to the north-east of Umeå. Mid-day service separates the two loops, and a shorter sprint version of the Umeå stage rounds out the day.