WRC Canary Islands: Sebastien Ogier leads as Toyota…

The nine-time world champion was the pick of the Toyotas as the Japanese brand locked out the top five positions

Sébastien Ogier ended Friday’s leg of Rally Islas Canarias with a slender 8.9 second lead as Toyota strengthened its stranglehold of the top five at the asphalt World Rally Championship event.

Toyota proved untouchable on the smooth asphalt roads on the Spanish island, but it was nine-time world champion Ogier who was the pick of the bunch. Here's how he did it.

Ogier moved into the rally lead after winning stage two, and went on to extend his advantage to 5.9s after a morning loop that was shortened by the cancellation of stage three.

Oliver Solberg, Elliott Edmondson, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (Photo by: Toyota Racing)

In the afternoon, the Frenchman found himself locked in a fight with team-mate Oliver Solberg as the pair shared the spoils across the stages. Solberg took the honours in stage five by 0.1s, before Ogier responded in stage six to take the win by 0.2sec. Solberg’s improved afternoon pace was enough to elevate the Swede into second overall.

Ogier managed to take another two seconds out of Solberg, who wasn’t battling worn rubber, in stage seven. The rally leader then took a further 0.3s in the day’s super special held in the Gran Canaria stadium.

"It is a close fight but that is the way we like it as well," said Ogier. There is not much more [pace] to come but there are always some little things we can do better, and that is why we keep working to find the sweet spot, and we were not far from it."

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (Photo by: Toyota Racing)

Toyota’s Sami Pajari snatched third on the final super special stage by a margin of 0.5s per team-mate Elfyn Evans. The duo were however both unhappy across the afternoon after failing to find the sweet spot in their cars to take the fight to Ogier and Solberg.

“It’s strange. There were some stages where the feeling wasn’t so great, and still the time was quite nice. And then some stages where the feeling was good, and then the time wasn’t so great. So it’s tricky to judge somehow,” said Pajari.

“I felt like a really nice and clean, smooth drive, not killing the tyres too much. But it seems like I was still just too cautious, maybe I should be more overdriving the tyre and trying to find the absolute limit. Let’s say it is not going to my common sense as to why we are losing.”

Evans added: “Of course, we’re here to fight at the front, but we haven’t been able to do that today, so we want to find improvements.”

Takamoto Katsuta started the day with an overnight rally lead after winning Thursday night’s super special. The Japanese driver was unable to extract the pace to challenge the top of the leaderboard after a battling understeer for the majority of the day.

The championship leader ultimately ended the day in fifth overall, 29.7s adrift of Ogier’s lead. Katsuta was however comfortably ahead of the trio of Hyundais.

Daniel Sordo, Candido Carrera, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1 (Photo by: Hyundai)

Hyundai had expected to be trialing Toyota given the fact the island's smooth asphalt roads are the worst condition for its i20 N that has a narrow operating window. All three of its crews struggled for balance and confidence behind the wheel and were simply unable to commit to the same lines in the stages as their Toyota rivals.

Dani Sordo emerged as the best of the Hyundai trio, finishing sixth overall despite a brush with a barrier in stage seven. The Spaniard ended the day 52.0s from the lead. Adrien Fourmaux completed the loop in seventh, 2.8s behind Sordo and 8.8s ahead of Thierry Neuville.

“All three cars have tried different set ups. I was struggling and I wasn’t able to match the speed of my team-mates so I did a bigger change but it is far from perfect. It is a battle between Hyundai drivers so I need to speed up a bit.”

Jon Armstrong, Shane Byrne, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1 (Photo by: M-Sport)

It also proved to be a challenging day for M-Sport-Ford as both Josh McErlean and JJon Armstrong were fighting understeer and lack of balance from their Ford Pumas. Armstrong’s day ended on as our note when he clipped an armco barrier in stage seven, before then suffering a transmission issue on his way to the super special that left him with only two-wheel drive.

McErlean ended the day in ninth overall [+1m41.1s] with Armstrong in 11th spot [+2m10.6s] after losing 40 seconds to a wild off in stage four that the Northern Irishman was fortunate to recover from.

In WRC2, Lancia’s Yohan Rossel set a blistering pace across Friday’s stages to lead the class by 22.0s over home hero Alejandro Cachon, driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.

The action continues on Saturday as crews tackle six more stages comprising 112 competitive kilometres.