Kalle Rovanperä was in a league of his own as he led a stunning Toyota clean sweep through Friday’s opening leg of Rally Islas Canarias. The Finn, alongside co-driver Jonne Halttunen, topped the timesheets on all six of the day’s speed tests to build a commanding lead of 26.8sec. All five of Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally1 cars ended the day ahead of their rivals from Hyundai Motorsport and M-Sport Ford, completing a dominant showing for the Japanese marque.
Rovanperä’s return to form could not have been better timed. A subdued start to the season had left the two-time world champion 57 points adrift of the championship lead coming into this fourth round – but that gap could start to shrink if his domination continues into the weekend.
While others battled with car set-up and tyre management, Rovanperä appeared right at home on the technical asphalt roads that wound high into Gran Canaria’s mountains – roads that were lined with fans eager to witness the island’s first-ever WRC appearance.
“It feels quite good,” Rovanperä smiled. “It’s surprisingly nice to have this kind of Tarmac rally – we haven’t had it in a long time. Now hopefully we know for tomorrow what to do with the car. We tested some small things here, so it should be quite okay.”
An interrupted rhythm caused by understeer in SS3 – which he still won – was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect day for the 24-year-old. He was followed onto the provisional podium by eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier and current points leader Elfyn Evans, with Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta completing Toyota’s clean sweep in fourth and fifth respectively.
“It’s been a very positive day for the whole team,” said Ogier. “To fill the top five places after day one is pretty impressive, so well done to our engineers and mechanics for the hard work, adapting to the new tyres as best as we can. Of course I’m never 100 per cent happy to be second but Kalle was really flying today and there was no way we could match his pace. I think we made some improvements this afternoon in terms of feeling and pace, and we still have some ideas for tomorrow.”
Ogier and Evans were closely matched in the battle for second, but once Ogier dialled in his tyre pressures after the opening stage, he gained the upper hand – reaching the overnight halt in Las Palmas 9.6sec clear of his Welsh colleague.
“It’s definitely been a great day for the team today,” Evans remarked. “They’ve done a really good job preparing for this rally. On a personal note, I’m maybe not entirely satisfied and could have done with finding a bit more confidence with the car and a few more seconds to fight with Kalle and Seb, who have been doing a great job. I’m not quite able to follow them at the moment but we’ll try a few changes tonight. Tomorrow’s stages are maybe a bit more abrasive, so it could be a bit more difficult for the tyres, and we have to see what the weather does too.”
Pajari, making only his second pure asphalt outing in a Rally1 car, delivered a string of top-four stage times to end Friday just 18.9sec behind Evans. Katsuta, whose confidence and commitment visibly grew as the day wore on, was a further 10.7sec back after overtaking Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux on the penultimate stage to snatch fifth.
It was a frustrating day for Fourmaux and wider Hyundai team – with the Frenchman falling to eighth on the final stage behind his colleagues Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak. All three struggled to extract performance from the hard compound Hankook Ventus Z215 tyres, with set-up issues leaving them over a minute adrift of the lead and searching for solutions overnight.
“I don’t know what to say,” Neuville reacted. “Obviously, days like this are really hard to swallow. But in the end, they are not the end of the world. I’m not sure we learned anything today. We know we have two more days to go, and we need to keep positive and continue working.”
M-Sport Ford drivers Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean faced similar challenges. The duo worked together on road sections between stages to make adjustments, but progress was limited. Munster ended the day ninth overall, 56.3sec behind Fourmaux, while McErlean languished further back in 11th place.
“I’m really happy with today,” Rovanperä concluded. “Everything came together well and it’s been a super day for the team overall. It seems we have done our preparation well and it meant we could just enjoy the driving and do a good job. The car is fast, I’m happy with the balance and I can drive it like I want, and our pacenotes have been good as well. Some sections of tomorrow’s stages will be a bit different in character to today, so we need to keep focused, see if we can make the car even better, and try to keep this up.”
Saturday brings the rally’s longest leg, with more than 120km of competitive action spread across seven stages. It ends with a unique fan-friendly test that takes crews inside the Gran Canaria Arena – usually the home of professional basketball.
