Championship leader Sebastien Ogier was fastest out of the blocks to win the opening stage of Rally Finland. The Frenchman was quickest by 1.2sec in a Volkswagen Polo R from team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, with last night’s qualifying stage winner Mikko Hirvonen in third.
The short spectator stage is far removed from the traditional fast and flowing Finnish stages and Ogier admitted it was tricky.
“It wasn’t so easy, short and slippery,” he said. “Nobody is taking too many risks. In the next one we will have to be in the rhythm. Everyone knows that if you want to win Rally Finland you have to be in the rhythm from the beginning.”
Latvala received a wake-up call at the first corner on asphalt. “I was going too fast into the corner and ran a bit wild and wide,” said the Finn.
Hirvonen was just two-tenths of a second behind his fellow countryman. He admitted to a steady opening in his Citroen DS3 but added: “Now we’re going to go for it. Every stage is important but now we really have to fight back.”
Mads Ostberg was fourth in a Ford Fiesta RS, with ‘Russian Rocket’ Evgeny Novikov and Thierry Neuville rounding out the top six, which were covered by just 2.2sec.
Juho Hanninen arrived at the finish with the front of his Fiesta RS full of dirt. “I went somewhere that wasn’t in my plan!” the Finn told WRC Live. “At a downhill section over a crest and jump I went off the road and I was lucky my rally didn’t finish there. Luckily there were no rocks underneath.”
P-G Andersson spun his Fiesta RS at the top of hill, while Jarkko Nikara complained of a lack of power in his Mini John Cooper Works.