WRC
Neuville heads Pajari in Portugal shakedown
Thierry Neuville gave Hyundai Motorsport an encouraging start to Vodafone Rally de Portugal by setting the pace in Wednesday afternoon’s shakedown at Baltar.
The Belgian posted a best time of 3min 51.2sec on his third run through the 5.72km gravel test, edging Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Sami Pajari by just three-tenths of a second as the FIA World Rally Championship returned to gravel for round six.
Adrien Fourmaux was quickest after the first runs with a 3min 53.6sec effort before Pajari moved the benchmark to 3min 51.5sec on his second pass. Neuville, who had been 1.4sec slower than Pajari at that point, responded on his final run to go fastest overall.
Portugal has been a happy hunting ground for Neuville in the past, with the Hyundai driver claiming victory on the event in 2018. But, after completing the pre-event reconnaissance, he warned that this year’s edition could bring changing grip levels and difficult weather.
“Generally, I’m looking forward to the event,” said Neuville. “It seems like the weather could be quite tough out there and we could face all kinds of conditions: dry, humid, damp and also very wet.
“When you get to the more muddy sections, where it turns into proper mud, that’s where it gets very slippery and it becomes very difficult to keep the car on the road.”
© WRC
Pajari continued his strong start to the season with the second-fastest time, having arrived in Portugal on the back of four consecutive podium finishes. The Finn said the stages looked clean during recce, but expected conditions to change significantly on the second passes.
“This year, the stages look really nice, but at the same time quite soft,” he explained. “Even if it looks really clean and perfect now on the recce, we can expect some really rutted conditions on the second passes of the stages.
“It’s nice to be back on gravel and, at least so far, I have a nice feeling and I’m looking forward to the rally. At the same time, it’s most likely going to be another challenging event, so the podiums now on the belt don’t make it any easier.”
© WRC
Fourmaux completed the top three, just 0.5sec behind Neuville, while M-Sport Ford’s Mārtiņš Sesks made an eye-catching start to the second round of his part-time campaign by going fourth. The Latvian matched championship leader Elfyn Evans to the tenth, both drivers stopping the clocks at 3min 51.8sec.
Oliver Solberg was sixth-fastest, only 0.7sec off the pace, with Takamoto Katsuta seventh and Dani Sordo eighth on his first gravel outing in Hyundai’s Rally1 car this season. Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean completed the top 10 for M-Sport Ford, while Sébastien Ogier was 11th after completing only one timed run.
Competitive action begins on Thursday afternoon with Águeda - Sever and Sever - Albergaria before the crews head to the Figueira da Foz super special to complete the opening leg. The rally covers 23 stages and 344.91 competitive kilometres before Sunday’s Wolf Power Stage on Fafe.
