World Rally Championship points leader Thierry Neuville snatched the opening stage victory from Takamoto Katsuta to claim an early Rally Finland lead.
Neuville was the last of the Rally1 cars to tackle the Harju super special stage in host city Jyvaskyla and was able to pip Toyota’s Katsuta by 1.1 seconds on the mixed surface test.
The stage time arrived following a challenging Thursday morning shakedown at the famous gravel rally for the Belgian.
“It’s a good start, but the real stuff starts tomorrow,” said Neuville.
“We are looking forward, it was a difficult shakedown for us this morning and we had some problems with the car.”
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak was third fastest, 0.2s adrift of the outright pace, while Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, making his first Finland start since 2021, was fourth quickest. Reigning world champion Kalle Rovanpera rounded out the top five.
“This is always a tricky stage to start the rally and it felt narrower in places - I just wanted to get it done, we are through and tomorrow the rally starts,” said Rovanpera.
Adrien Fourmaux led M-Sport-Ford’s charge in sixth (+3.0s) ahead of Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi (+3.1s), who was lucky to avoid clipping a tyre wall with the right rear of his i20 N. Toyota’s Elfyn Evans was eighth (+3.2s) ahead of Rally1 rookie Sami Pajari (+4.6s).
“Very special moment, always nice atmosphere here on the Harju stage but I am not sure how much I was enjoying it due to the conditions, 500 horsepower and the power but there we go - we are excited for tomorrow,” said Pajari.
M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster completed the top 10 (+8.2s).
WRC2 title contender Oliver Solberg led the way in the second tier posting a time 1.1s faster than Estonia’s Georg Linnamae, while Toyota WRC team principal Jari-Matti Latvala, making a one-off outing, was third (+2.1s_ driving a Rally2-spec GR Yaris.
“That’s weird, I just took it easy, I didn’t warm my tyres enough at the start and I was way too careful on the first bit, but the second lap was decent,” said Solberg.
The rally now continues on Friday with nine gravel stages awaiting the crews.
