Rovanperä holds slender Finland lead as Toyotas dominate Friday morning

In traditional Finnish fashion, the speeds were high and the margins were tight as the FIA World Rally Championship’s fastest round moved onto fast-paced forest roads following Thursday’s super special stage in Jyväskylä.

GR Yaris Rally1 cars, which are built and prepared here in the rally’s host city, topped the timesheets on all four speed tests, with Rovanperä overcoming excessive oversteer to head team-mate Evans as Sébastien Ogier completed the top three 2.8sec further back. All three drivers led at different points during the morning.

Stages three to five were delayed after Ott Tänak and co-driver Martin Järveoja, second in the points before this ninth round, rolled their Hyundai i20 N Rally1. Tänak was unharmed in the incident but Järveoja was transported to hospital for medical checks. Also facing problems was Takamoto Katsuta, who plummeted from fourth when he clipped a tree and destroyed his Toyota’s rear suspension on SS5.

“We made some changes to the car and finally it was maybe a bit better,” Rovanperä said. “On this rally it’s all about really small details to be fast with the car. It was definitely a really tricky loop and we need to work hard for the afternoon.”

The damp conditions worked in Evans’ favour with the Welshman, starting second in the running order, not having to worry about sweeping loose dust away from the road surface. He posted a pair of benchmark times and overtook Rovanperä on SS4 before dropping back to second on the following stage.

Home hero Esapekka Lappi climbed to fourth following Katsuta’s error, with his championship-leading Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville a further 4.4sec in arrears. Neuville, who won SS1 on Thursday, was unhappy with the handling of his car and dropped valuable time when he overshot a junction in Myhinpää.

It was a progressive morning for M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux, with the Frenchman continually adapting his Puma Rally1’s set-up between stages having not had the luxury of a pre-event test. He ended sixth, 37.0sec in front of Grégoire Munster’s similar car while Sami Pajari and WRC2 runners Oliver Solberg and Jari-Matti Latvala completed the top 10.

Pajari’s first proper stage in Rally1 machinery proved to be a baptism of fire. Spinning twice, the 22-year-old Finn damaged his Toyota’s rear wing and was forced to complete most of the morning with reduced rear aero.