A new stage added to the itinerary of the island event after its WRC debut last year, the opening test required drivers to tackle three laps of a tight and technical course laid out around the football pitch in the Gran Canaria Stadium, adjacent to the service park.
Putting on a show for a sizeable and passionate crowd, Katsuta set the fastest time by 0.4 seconds ahead of his team-mate Sami Pajari. The team’s other drivers all placed inside the overall top 10 and within two seconds of the overnight lead, with Sébastien Ogier tied for sixth , Elfyn Evans tied for eighth and Oliver Solberg 10th.
Solberg earlier set the pace in the pre-event shakedown on nearby mountain roads that are more representative of the weekend’s stages, with the GR YARIS Rally1 cars filling out the top five places.
TGR WRC Challenge Program driver Yuki Yamamoto started his WRC2 scoring campaign with the third best time in the class in the opening stage, placing him 12th overall in his GR Yaris Rally2 car.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“It is good to be here in Gran Canaria and get the rally started tonight with a lot of fans in the stadium. Of course, this stage is very different to the rest of the rally, which will be fast and flowing, with cambered corners and high grip. The roads are cleaner than in Croatia and hopefully it’s a fair and close fight. Everything seems to be looking good: we had a good result here last year, some good pre-event testing, and our times looked good in shakedown. Our car seems to suit these roads and I think all our drivers can do well.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s nice to get the rally started with this super special stage. It wasn’t brilliant for us but there wasn’t a lot of room for error, so I was trying not to do anything silly. The feeling was all OK in shakedown and like always, we’ll be aiming for the best result possible. I’m sure there will be fine margins like usual on this type of rally, but hopefully we can have an interesting fight.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 1)
“It was cool to see a lot of people and a good atmosphere for this first stage. Of course, it was very twisty and not like the stages we’ll have during the weekend, but good for the show. It’s nice to be back here, it’s a beautiful rally with enjoyable stages and consistent conditions most of the time. The weather can be unpredictable and that’s the main question mark we have at the moment, but the car felt good on shakedown and we are ready.”
Oliver Solberg (Driver car 99)
“It’s fantastic to bring so many people together in one place for a stage like this, and give them a show before we go into the proper mountain stages. It was a tricky little stage and not a perfect run, I was just trying not to do anything risky. This is a beautiful rally: the scenery, the people and the stages are amazing. It was nice to be quickest in shakedown and we’ll just try to keep the good feeling we had in the car in Croatia.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“I really appreciated seeing so many people coming to watch this first stage and see our sport, and it’s important to show them what we can do. The corners were quite tight, so I couldn’t be too optimistic, but hopefully it was fun for the fans and our time was quite good. The car seems to be working well; we tried a few things on the shakedown this morning. I’m just focused on myself and hope to enjoy these beautiful stages over the rest of the weekend.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“This was quite a special stage to drive: not really made for this car, but it was a good show for the fans. Now there’s three days of proper action coming and I’m looking forward to that. This is one of my favourite rallies with the clean and flowing asphalt stages. I’m expecting small gaps between everyone, so we need to be 100 percent on it to make a good time, but we had a good feeling on the shakedown.”
End of day one (Thursday):
1 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1m54.2s
2 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +0.4s
3 Roberto Daprà/Luca Guglielmetti (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +0.8s
4 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.0s
5 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +1.2s
6 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.4s
= Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.4s
8 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.9s
= Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1.9s
10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2.0s ...
(Results as of 19:30 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
A loop of three stages is run twice to form the majority of Friday’s route, with mid-day service in between. While most of the roads used are familiar from last year’s event, some new sections have been added and the Mogán - La Aldea stage is run in the reverse direction. Another pass of the stadium super special rounds out the day, which totals 108.79 competitive kilometres.
