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The stage-winning run continued for home hero Neuville on SS8 while former leader Evans arrived late
Photography by Hyundai & Toyota
Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak hold an overnight one-two for Hyundai for the first time this season in the World Rally Championship as Elfyn Evans fell adrift at the end of the first day of Ypres Rally Belgium due to checking into the final stage late.
Evans led in Belgium for most of the opening day, but lost his advantage on the seventh stage of eight after a stunning time from Neuville.
The Toyota driver lost more time on SS8, dropping three seconds to Neuville, but trails by 13.7s overall due to a 10s time penalty for checking into SS8 one minute late.
“It’s not been a great afternoon,” Evans said. “We had a slow puncture out of the second stage so we had to use a rain tire and in these conditions it’s not ideal.”
Neuville, naturally, was far happier – leading his home round of the WRC overnight after recovering well from an overshoot on the first stage.
“It’s a whole different afternoon in terms of handling of the car, I’m much happier now,” he said.
“Our gravel crew has done a great job as well, very precise information and I felt comfortable to follow his information. That’s very important on a day like this.”
Neuville leads Tänak by 2.5s, beating his team-mate by 1.9s on SS8 – but the Rally Finland winner has been pleasantly surprised by his Friday pace.
“The day has been a lot better than expected, we really didn’t have the feeling yesterday [on shakedown] to be fighting today,” Tänak said.
“It’s been coming the hard way but we are in a surprisingly good position.”
Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi is best of the rest behind the top three – or as he put it at the end of SS7 he is “leading the class with the wrong tires”.
Both Lappi and fifth-placed Craig Breen opted for three wet and three soft compound tires for the afternoon, but the expected rain failed to materialize.
That led Breen, who was second in Ypres last year and won it in 2019 when it was a non-WRC event, to label his Friday as “nearly the worst one that I’ve had” in Flanders.
“We’ve just been very unlucky this evening with the way we planned our tire choice,” he said.
“We were expecting the rain and we’ve done the whole afternoon without seeing a proper drop of it, but c’est la vie.”
Lappi is 18.8s up the road from Breen after an impressive time through SS8 that was just one tenth slower than Tänak’s.
“The tire choice was not the greatest for the afternoon but that’s how it is,” Lappi said. “I think we managed very well.”
Gus Greensmith, Oliver Solberg and Adrien Fourmaux are cut slightly adrift of those ahead of them, all over 1m30s back from Neuville.
M-Sport Ford’s Greensmith sits in sixth ahead of Solberg, who suffered a gearbox problem in his Hyundai on the final stage and it upset his rhythm.
“I know I can go much faster, but we just need to build up the confidence again and we’ll see tomorrow,” Solberg said.
Fourmaux, who was punished on the first pass of Langemark when the rain fell and dropped him four places to eighth, has held position throughout the afternoon and lurks 8.3s behind Solberg overall.
Stéphane Lefebvre leads WRC2 after a dominant display in his Citroën C3 Rally2, leading last year’s WRC2 champion Andreas Mikkelsen by 15.5s.
Chris Ingram was fastest on the first stage but from there Lefebvre – who leads this year’s Belgian Rally Championship – has been boss, pulling clear of Mikkelsen.
“It was a clean day, not so much risk, so I enjoy,” said Lefebvre.
Mikkelsen, who is 10th overall, was sticking to his plan though.
“We’re trying to find a risk level which is tolerant for the whole rally, and so far it’s been working well,” he said.
“For sure we can push more but then the risk immediately goes high. So we had a good day, I’m happy with our performance.”
Yohan Rossel rounds out the WRC2 podium 13.1s adrift of Mikkelsen’s Škoda.
Tags: Elfyn Evans, Hyundai Motorsport, Thierry Neuville, Toyota Gazoo Racing, World Rally Championship, WRC 2022, Ypres Rally, Ypres Rally 2022
Publish Date August 19, 2022 DirtFish https://www-dirtfish.imgix.net/2022/08/2022BELGIUM_AUS_0055.jpg?fit=scale&fm=pjpg&h=520&ixlib=php-1.2.1&q=70&w=780&wpsize=entry-main August 19, 2022
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Copyright © 2022 DirtFish, LLC. All rights reserved.
Subaru Impreza STI Sedan & Hatchback Features
Roll Cage: Every rally car requires a welded-in safety cage. The roll cages in our cars are built in-house from scratch.
Racing Seats: Driver and co-driver need to be firmly mounted to the structure of the vehicle. The use of hinged-back seats in rally vehicles is prohibited in rally and most forms of racing.
Racing Harnesses: Safety first. A minimum of a 5-point harness is required by all American rally sanctioning bodies. The 5 points consist of 2 shoulder harness, 2 lap belts and a single anti-submarine belt (not shown).
Handbrake: Most rally cars use a hydraulic handbrake. The purpose of the handbrake maneuver is to turn a car around a very tight corner by locking up the rear wheels aiding in the rotation of the car around the corner.
Engine: Our Subaru STi’s use a 2.5 liter 4-cylinder Turbo-charged Boxer engine.
Drive train: The Subaru STi is equipped with an advanced all-wheel-drive system with an active center differential.
Gravel Rally Tires: Being a rally school, we spend most of our time on gravel roads. To maximize the learning experience, we outfit all of our cars with the latest gravel rally tires for maximum traction.
Method Rally Wheels: It is very important to have a durably strong, yet lightweight rally wheel that can hold up to constant abuse, rocks, rough roads and punctures. At DirtFish, we use and trust Method Race Wheels.
Suspension: Rally is rarely on a perfectly smooth roads, because of that rally cars require suspension that can take the abuse. We choose to use Reiger rally suspension on our cars.
Brakes: Rally cars commonly use a 15″ rally wheel. In order for the wheels to fit on our Subaru STi’s, we had to convert them to a Group N brake setup.
Underbody Protection: Driving at high speeds over variable surfaces can easily damage parts. With the constant spray of gravel that gets thrown at them, skid plates and urethane underbody protection help with the longevity of the underbody of the cars.
Roll Cage: Every rally car requires a welded-in safety cage. The roll cages in our cars are built in-house from scratch.
Racing Seats: Driver and co-driver need to be firmly mounted to the structure of the vehicle. The use of hinged-back seats in rally vehicles is prohibited in rally and most forms of racing.
Racing Harnesses: Safety first. A minimum of a 5-point harness is required by all American rally sanctioning bodies. The 5 points consist of 2 shoulder harness, 2 lap belts and a single anti-submarine belt (not shown).
Handbrake: Most rally cars use a hydraulic handbrake. The purpose of the handbrake maneuver is to turn a car around a very tight corner by locking up the rear wheels to aid the rotation of the car around the corner.
Engine: The Subary BRZ is powered by a 2.0 liter naturally aspirated Boxer engine.
Drive train: The Subaru BRZ is rear-wheel-drive and equipped with a limited slip differential.
Gravel Rally Tires: Being a rally school, we spend most of our time on gravel roads. To maximize the learning experience, we outfit all of our cars with the latest gravel rally tires for maximum traction.
Method Rally Wheels: It is very important to have a durably strong, yet lightweight rally wheel that can hold up to constant abuse, rocks, rough roads and punctures. At DirtFish, we use and trust Method Race Wheels.
Suspension: Rally is rarely on a perfectly smooth roads, because of that rally cars require suspension that can take the abuse. We choose to use Reiger rally suspension on our cars.
Brakes: Rally cars commonly use a 15″ rally wheel. Luckily with the Subaru BRZ’s, the stock brake system is more than adequate for our programs.
Underbody Protection: Driving at high speeds over variable surfaces can easily damage parts. With the constant spray of gravel that gets thrown at them, skid plates and urethane underbody protection help with the longevity of the underbody of the cars.
Below you will find an aerial view of the DirtFish property. Go through and check out the courses you’ll be driving on during your driving program! View everything from The Slalom all the way up to our longest course, the Advanced Mill Run!