MATOSINHOS (PORTUGAL): Elfyn Evans will open the road on the opening day of the
56th Vodafone Rally of Portugal on Friday. The Welshman holds a joint lead in the Drivers’ Championship with eight-time World Champion Sébastien Ogier but, in the Frenchman’s absence from this event, the onus will be on Evans and co-driver Scott Martin to deliver another polished performance and try and lay the foundations for a serious push towards a maiden world title.
This weekend’s 19-stage Rally of Portugal marks the first of seven consecutive events on gravel, a sequence that will stretch to October and pose widespread challenges for all the teams.
Evans and Ogier are tied on 69 points apiece in a title race where 11 points separate the top five drivers and defending World Champion and Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä is only one point behind.
Evans has come frustratingly close to securing the world title on two occasions and knows that this could well be his year to shine with Ogier only tackling a part-time programme of events. However, running first on the road may be advantageous on asphalt, but it’s the opposite on a loose gravel event like Portugal.
The 2021 event winner said: “It is a nice rally but, in recent years, it has also become quite a rough one. There are sections that are really fast and flowing and fun to drive and others where it’s a challenge to look after the tyres and the car. Portugal is the start of a string of gravel events. Now that we were successful in Croatia, we will have the job of opening the road, but I’m sure that is something that is going to swing back and forth between the drivers a few times over the next rallies. It’s going to be a difficult start unless the weather is in our favour. It’s just part of the territory really.”
Rovanperä began the season with second and fourth in Monte-Carlo and Sweden and followed that with two further fourth-place finishes in México and Croatia. The 2022 Rally of Portugal winner is quietly confident that he can come away with a top finish.
The Finn said: “It has always been an event that I have liked and we were able to win it last year, even though we were starting as the first car on the road. It is a rally we know fairly well with some legendary stages, so the pace is always high and it should be quite an equal fight. The start of our year has not been perfect. I was aiming for bigger results but we are still very much in this close championship.”
Toyota’s team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is also a former winner in Portugal. He added: “You have to take care with the tyre wear and avoid hitting rocks, especially on the second pass. We feel quite confident, as we have made good improvements on gravel, which paid off in México. We worked to build on this during our recent test in Sardinia.”
Ott Tänak holds fourth in the title race and is a mere four points adrift of Evans and Ogier. The Estonian’s switch from the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team to the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team at the start of the year has already seen the 2019 Rally of Portugal winner claim victory in Sweden and second place in Croatia.
The 2019 World Champion will start Friday’s opening stages from third on the road. He said: “We are going now into gravel season where things are starting to get more serious in terms of championship competition. After our pre-event test we are still a bit behind in a few places, but guys have been working hard to find ways for improvements and we still have shakedown to test the final details. We saw in México that our competitors are strong on gravel and we have some areas where we need to improve. Some of the second loops of stages can be very rough and demanding.”
Thierry Neuville holds fifth in the Drivers’ Championship and is within touching distance of the leaders, despite a disappointing outing in Croatia, where winning the Power Stage and collecting five points was scant consolation for his misfortune earlier on. Before that, the Belgian had been a model of consistency this season with third places in Monte-Carlo and Sweden and the runner-up spot in México.
Neuville claimed the top step of the podium in Portugal in 2018. The leading Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team driver is making his third appearance on the rally with co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe. With his favourable starting position for Friday, Neuville will be hoping he can claim the top step of the podium.
He said: “The atmosphere, first and foremost, stands out. We have the iconic Fafe jump, some really sandy roads, hard-based stages around Amarante and it’s great to have so many enthusiastic fans there with us.”
Hyundai team-mate Esapekka Lappi is a distant sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, the highlight of his season thus far being his consistent pace in México and third overall in Croatia. “This is a unique rally,” said the Finn. “It was emotional to finish on the podium in Croatia, but it was special to do it for Craig (Breen). We hope we can carry that momentum forward with us into Portugal.”
Japan’s Takamoto Katsuta drives the third Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 Hybrid in Portugal and knows full well that his season needs a good result after two sixth-place finishes and a pair of bitter disappointments in Sweden and México.
“I’m looking forward to the weekend,” said Katsuta. “In the last two years I finished fourth and last year I was very close to the podium. We missed out by two seconds, so this year I will try to achieve that. We had a good test, so hopefully our hard work pays off for these next rallies.”
Spanish veteran Dani Sordo makes his third WRC start of the season in the third Hyundai. The experienced Sordo finished seventh in Monte-Carlo, fifth in México and has a strong track record in Portugal: he finished third overall on five occasions (2007, 2009, 2010, 2017 and 2022), led for the first two specials in 2019 and finished second in 2021.
Sordo added: “It would be amazing to finish on the podium again at the weekend. We felt we had the pace and potential in México, so we want to be back in the fight for the top three in Portugal.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet and Belgian navigator Nicolas Gilsoul crew the second M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid and round off the Rally1 crews. A sixth and a seventh place are the highlights of Loubet’s season so far and the Frenchman will be hoping to improve on that and boost the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team’s tally of points in the Manufacturers’ Championship. The Blue Oval currently holds third place, 53 points behind Toyota Gazoo Racing and 24 adrift of the Hyundai Shell Mobis operation.
Loubet said: “I’m very happy to be in Portugal. It’s my favourite rally where I have better experience. I’ve already done it quite a few times. The target will be to get a good result. Last year, this was my first rally on gravel with the team and the speed was there without the experience.”
Thursday
The traditional 4.61km Shakedown stage is again based at Paredes and gets the competitive action underway on Thursday morning, with Priority 1 drivers on the track between 09.01hrs and 10.30hrs.
P2, P3, P4 and Non-Priority crews will then take their turn on the special, while several leading drivers attend the pre-event press conference at the media centre in Exponor, starting at 13.30hrs.
The rally then heads to the city of Coimbra for the ceremonial start on Thursday evening from 20.30hrs. There is no super special stage in the evening on this occasion.
2023 Vodafone Rally of Portugal – Rally1 crews
11. Thierry Neuville (BEL)/Martijn Wydaeghe (BEL) Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid
69. Kalle Rovanperä (FIN)/Jonne Halttunen (FIN) Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid
8. Ott Tänak (EST)/Martin Järveoja (EST) Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid
33. Elfyn Evans (GBR)/Scott Martin (GBR) Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid
6. Dani Sordo (ESP)/Candido Carrera (ESP) Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid
4. Esapekka Lappi (FIN)/Janne Ferm (FIN) Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid
18. Takamoto Katsuta (JPN)/Aaron Johnston (IRL) Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid
7. Pierre Louis Loubet (FRA)/Nicolas Gilsoul (BEL) Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid
2023 FIA World Rally Championship – positions after round 4:
Drivers
1. Sébastien Ogier (FRA) 69pts
1. Elfyn Evans (GBR) 69pts
3. Kalle Rovanperä (FIN) 68pts
4. Ott Tänak (EST) 65pts
5. Thierry Neuville (BEL) 58pts
6. Esapekka Lappi (FIN) 31pts
7. Craig Breen (IRL) 19pts
8. Takamoto Katsuta (JPN) 18pts
9. Dani Sordo (ESP) 17pts
10. Pierre-Louis Loubet (FRA) 14pts
11. Oliver Solberg (SWE) 9pts
12. Gus Greensmith (GBR) 8pts
13. Emil Lindholm (FIN) 6pts
13. Yohan Rossel (FRA) 6pts
15. Nikolay Gryazin (ANA) 3pts, etc
2023 FIA Manufacturers’ Championship – positions after round 4:
1. Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT 161pts
2. Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT 132pts
3. M-Sport Ford WRT 108pts
Ends
For further media information:
Filipe Santos, National Rally Press Officer, email: [email protected], Marco Barbosa, email: [email protected] and Lluisa Torras, Media Relations Officer, email: [email protected], Mobile: +34 629 924073.
www.wrc.com
www.rallydeportugal.pt