Rally Latvia 2024, Friday’s Report

The first full day of action was fast and furious on these quick Latvian roads. The crews had seven stages to tackle, with three in the morning and four in the afternoon. Of course, Thierry and Martijn would open the road throughout the day. The interesting aspect of the day’s stages was that the afternoon would see two stages only run one time, making the Belgian’s task even more tricky as the championship leaders.

Of course, there was a stage run on Thursday evening and the top three after that stage was Kalle, Thierry and Seb.

Onto Friday’s action and first up was SS2 Milzkalne 1 – 4.99 km, a short sharp blast! Kalle was fastest from Seb and Takamoto. The top three overall was Kalle, Seb and Martins. Yep, the young Latvian in his Puma was on the pace and moved onto the podium positions.

What followed next in the longer SS3 Tukums 1 – 27.56 km will go down in history as the first stage win for Martins from Kalle and Ott. The Latvian crew were up into third overall, what an impressive drive! Ott was also on the move, gaining three positions and moving into fourth overall.

Next up was SS4 Andumi – 17.86 km and once again Martins was fastest from Kalle and Adrien. Further back, Gregoire passed Thierry and moved into ninth overall, whilst his championship challenger Elfyn was in sixth overall.

After the tyre fitting zone SS5 Milzkalne 2 – 4.99 km saw Seb take the stage from Takamoto and Kalle, with Martins setting the fifth fastest time. He remained in second overall, 3.7 seconds from Kalle. Adrien passed Elfyn in this one moving into sixth place, and he had his eye on the positions currently occupied by Takamoto and Ott.

Then it was back to SS6 Tukums 2 – 27.56 km and Kalle was fastest from Martins and Seb. Adrien was doing what he could to move further up the standings but was just being kept behind by Takamoto.

Into SS7 Strazde – 17.44 km and Kalle was again fastest from Martins and Seb, whilst Adrien was faster than Takamoto and edged a little closer to the Japanese driver, the gap just 1.6 seconds. Meanwhile Ott was having some technical problems with his brakes and was seventh quickest.

Time then for the final stage, SS8 Talsi – 20.52 km and Kalle was fastest from Takamoto and Gregoire. The Puma driver made a move up the leader board and into eighth place, whilst his teammate Adrien was up into fifth place as Ott continued to suffer with brake problems and both Takamoto and Adrien gained positions.

Let’s take a look at the top positions and hear from the drivers.

Classification after Day One

1	K. Rovanperä	J. Halttunen	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid	1:08:44.5
2	M. Sesks	R. Francis	Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid	+15.7
3	S. Ogier	V. Landais	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid	+21.6
4	T. Katsuta	A. Johnston	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid	+33.2
5	A. Fourmaux	A. Coria	Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid	+38.5
6	O. Tänak	M. Järveoja	Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid	+38.8
7	E. Evans	S. Martin	Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid	+52.7
8	G. Munster	L. Louka	Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid	+1:10.2
9	T. Neuville	M. Wydaeghe	Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid	+1:23.3
10	E. Lappi	J. Ferm	Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid	+1:27.4

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Kalle Rovanperä

“It was quite a good day. I didn’t have the perfect feeling, but we made no mistakes and I think we did a good job. This morning I wasn’t feeling so confident in the car, and the conditions were quite slippery. It was hard to change much with only a tyre-fitting zone and not a proper service, but we tried to improve the car and push more for the afternoon, and we found a bit of a better feeling. We kept it clean, didn’t push too much when the feeling wasn’t the best and still some good times came. The tyre strategy was also really good. We need to try and find something for tomorrow to have more of a consistent feeling but otherwise it’s been good.”

Elfyn Evans

“It’s been an OK day for us. The road evolution was quite clear with every car that passed: there was a lot of loose gravel, more than in Poland, and that’s made it harder to fight with the drivers starting behind us. There was not a lot we could do about it, so we just had to focus on doing the best we could, try to stay in touch and improve our road position for tomorrow. The feeling in the car was OK and the driving was not too bad, so I don’t think there was a lot more time left to be found. Our position will be a bit better for tomorrow, and every place helps, so let’s see what’s possible.”

Sébastien Ogier

“I enjoyed it a lot today, it was good fun in the car after a couple of years for me without doing this kind of fast event. I’m also happy with the performance. We’ve seen a massive cleaning effect today and although we were not in the worst position on the road, we only had three cars in front of us, so it was also slippery for us in some moments. I felt good in the car and the pacenotes were good. It’s positive to be where we are tonight, and it’s been a good day for the team. We’re not really in a fight with Kalle, but it’s an interesting fight for second and we will do our best to carry on like this tomorrow.”

Takamoto Katsuta

“It went well today. The stages here in Latvia are nice and I’m enjoying them a lot. The roads all look quite similar and are hard to memorise, so I just needed to focus on the pacenotes, and they were working well. I enjoyed it in the car, it was feeling really good. This morning we tried a few things between the stages and found some positive steps: I just needed to be a bit more committed in my driving. In the afternoon it was difficult to manage the tyres over such a long loop, but still we were able to push in the final stage and gain a position which was good. So far it’s been much better than in Poland and I hope we can just continue like this.”

 

M-Sport Ford WRT

Martins Sesks

“We’ve done a pretty good job, two stage wins: I didn’t expect that, we just have to keep the focus for the next two days. We have shown that we have the speed. It’s incredible, but we still have two days to go, and we are still learning. It’s faster with the hybrid, and we have started to understand. It’s really fun!”

Hyundai Motorsport

Ott Tänak

“I was expecting to do better today, we were lacking speed quite a bit and we are not really where we expected to be at the end of the day. It was difficult to find a good balance; we have been trying to understand this all day, but we never found the sweet spot and that makes it hard to really nail it. We lost two places on that final stage so it will be tricky to fight for the podium, but those behind us are also quite close so we need to focus on managing the gap.”

Thierry Neuville

“A challenging day, but we weren’t expecting anything less before the rally started. We knew this was going to be our most difficult event of the season so far, and it is what it is. I tried to push hard, especially on that final stage, but I couldn’t do any more out there today.”

Esapekka Lappi

“A very difficult day. We struggled all day with no grip, I felt we were missing a lot of traction, and we were overheating the tyres because we were just spinning them around, causing a lot of tyre wear. I was trying so hard, but we had no speed. Let’s try to change something for tomorrow.”

 

Oliver Solberg

“It’s been a good day. On the first loop in the morning, the road was quite loose and we were sliding in some places – in the long stage (SS3, Tukums 1, 27.56km) there were some quite big slides.

“I was pushing quite hard and taking some risks to try to build a lead and then for the afternoon it was about controlling the tyres and trying to take care of things. The driving has been good today and so has the feeling in the car. There was only a remote tyre zone, no proper service at lunchtime – sometimes you don’t take the full attack when it’s like this.

“We were a little bit careful in the last stage, there was some Tarmac in the beginning and I didn’t want to take any risks that could cost us all the work we have done so far.”

Saturday

The second full day of the rally will see eight stages and 104km’s, with six stages only run one time.

Who will occupy the podium positions at the end of the day?