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.
After Wednesday evening’s 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.
Pajari, fresh from scoring his maiden podium at Rally Japan earlier this month, drove strongly from the morning’s 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’s final test Khulais.
He then edged ahead of Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) for second place in the afternoon’s first stage, before another stage win in the second pass of the rock-lined Moon Stage was enough to take the rally lead from Mārtiņš 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.
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.
The three protagonists for the drivers’ championship – Elfyn Evans, Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä – suffered the most with road cleaning given their positions at the front of the road order.
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. Rovanperä 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 – who was opening the road as the championship leader – for eighth place on the day’s last gravel stage.
Quotes:
Juha Kankkunen (Deputy Team Principal)
“This has certainly been an interesting day to follow with a lot of things changing from one stage to the next. In a way it’s somehow surprising that there wasn’t 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’re 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’m sure there can be more drama to come.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s 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’t 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’s tough to know how well you’re driving when the road is evolving so fast. But we’re still here and tomorrow we have a longer loop of stages where staying out of trouble will probably be quite tough, but I’ll just stay focused on my own driving.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“Today has been quite tough, but it’s 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’s still a long way to go though, so let’s see what we can do.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s 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’t see it in our overall position, but I think we did a really good job today. I don’t 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.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“This first full day was a tough one as expected. It’s 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’d like to be higher than sixth but there’s still a long way to go, so we’ll just keep going and see what happens tomorrow.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s 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’s a pity what happened with the tyre on the last gravel stage because we dropped a bit of time there, but we’re still only a few seconds away from the lead. It’s 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.”
End of day two (Thursday):
1 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 1h18m45.3s
2 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +6.0s
3 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +6.9s
4 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (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 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +44.2s
8 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m21.2s
9 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m25.3s
10 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m10.9s
(Results as of 21:10 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
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