After all the hype and speculation before the start of the 52nd Vodafone Rally of Portugal, it was down to the serious business of arriving at the optimal car set-up for competitors on the 4.60km Shakedown stage at Parades on Thursday morning.
Toyota GAZOO Racing World Rally Team’s Jari-Matti Latvala carried out three passes through the gravel stage in front of hundreds of spectators and topped the times with a last run of 3min 03.5sec in his Toyota Yaris WRC.
Sébastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville gave an early indication that this is going to be a thrilling weekend of high-speed gravel action by tying for the second fastest time with runs of 3min 03.8sec.
Sweden’s Pontus Tidemand was the class of the WRC 2 field with a best run of 3min 14.5sec.
Ogier laid down the gauntlet with a first pass of 3min 08.3sec, but Finland’s Latvala eventually topped the times on the first run with a time of 3min 06.3sec.
Drivers took advantage of a cleaner surface for their second run and Sordo topped the early times with a 3min 04.9sec, which was two-tenths of a second up on Neuville. Kris Meeke then shaved another tenth off the Spaniard’s quickest time.
Neuville hit the front at the start of the third runs and took a full second off Meeke’s quickest time but the Belgian’s time was quickly matched by Ogier. Hayden Paddon was also back with a vengeance after missing three rallies and the Kiwi carded a third run of 3min 04.3sec to slot into fourth place behind a tying Ogier and Neuville and third-placed Mikkelsen.
But Latvala was not to be denied and the Finn stormed to the top of the rankings with a third pass of 3min 03.5sec, before the leading crews returned to Exponor to make changes to the car set-up and the WRC 2 crews took advantage of the Shakedown stage, with Tidemand topping the times from Gus Greensmith and Pedro Heller grinding to a halt with a technical issue.
The WRC crews returned to the stage towards the end of the session but none of the tail-enders could make in-roads into the times set earlier in the morning.