SS2 ranking Rally Japan 2024

F1 emilie. sport Thursday 21st November 2024 06:49 PM REPORT

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HIGHLIGHTS

Condemned to achieve a flawless performance this weekend to win the manufacturers' championship, Toyota got off to a very bad start this day with mainly a puncture and a wheel change for Sébastien Ogier. Before that, the Frenchman was very far away at the intermediates anyway on a road that had become increasingly slippery with the accumulation of leaves and earth.

Best performer in this event last year, Takamoto Katsuta also struggled and lost more than a minute with a slow puncture at the end.

Only three drivers finally managed to perform well with a scratch for Thierry Neuville, 1s2 ahead of Ott Tänak and 5s over Elfyn Evans. Behind them, Adrien Fourmaux is the best of the others by almost two seconds per kilometer! The M-Sport driver is also dominated by the first Rally2s of Nikolay Gryazin and Sami Pajari. Back in Yaris Rally2 for this weekend, the Finn can be satisfied with a second place to be titled in WRC2.

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PILOT REACTIONS

T. Neuville 18:27.4	There were fewer leaves than I expected. I tried to be clean.
O. Thank you 18:28.6	It's hard to know what the tires can do, it's quite abrasive. I tried to preserve them.
E.Evans 18:32.4	I had a hard time. The conditions are quite complicated.
S. Ogier 20:33.3	The first few corners were really slippery and I had understeer.
A.Fourmaux 19:14.3	Everything is fine, but there are a lot of leaves on the road and all the turns were complicated.
T.Katsuta 19:31.3	I have some ideas (for the puncture). It's not great.
G.Munster 19:18.8	We took soft tires, but it was the wrong choice because the surface gives us a lot of understeer.
A. Mikkelsen 19:22.3	We went straight into a corner, then I got stuck with the car and couldn't get going, we lost 10 seconds there. But it's such a mess on the special, there's no grip and to be sure of reaching the finish, you have to go very slowly. It was full of mud, not easy.
S. Pajari 19:12.8	If the time is good, that's good, but I found it quite complicated. I didn't really have any rhythm on the special, I was mentally struggling. It's always complicated to manage the pace, it's super demanding. It's not even raining, but the grip isn't there.
N.Gryazin	I'm not sure I made the right decision regarding the tires, it was good but just scary. I tried to be fast in the muddy sections. I had some difficult times. In the next stages I will feel better, for sure, I have to check the car and continue.