Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen won all seven stages on the opening day of Rally Estonia, the ninth round of the FIA World Rally Championship.
After the morning loop, Pajari had a 4.1 second lead over his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammates Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson.
Following a tyre fitting zone after SS3, Pajari steadily built up his lead to close out day one with 14.7 seconds in hand. “We have enjoyed it a lot. It is still only the first day of this event, so it is too soon to say anything more. I hope we can carry on with the same flow for two more days,” said the Finn.
Solberg was embroiled in a tough battle with Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria as they scrapped over second place; the leading Hyundai Motorsport crew rounded out the day’s action in third overall and very much in the fight, 1.8 seconds behind the Swede.
Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe held fourth after battling handling issues all day: “I expected more but I don’t know. The car felt brilliant in testing but today I couldn’t find any of that. We will change some stuff for tomorrow. I’m a bit disappointed I couldn’t find the feeling, but something must be wrong.”
Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais had a clean day but were hampered by running third on the road. “It has been an ok day for us. I feel sorry for Taka as he didn’t deserve that. On our side we will see if we can increase the rhythm with a better start position.”
Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston lost sixth position when a tyre delaminated on the final gravel stage and elected to retire the car after losing 47 seconds and dropping to the back of the Rally1 field.
Martins Sesks held sixth position overall after starting the rally with a 20-second penalty after leaving service two minutes late. The M-Sport Ford driver crashed in the morning shakedown stage, leaving his team with a mountain of work.
The Latvian driver drove his heart out, setting top three and four stage times as he clawed his way back up the order. “This was good, it was a great push and thanks to the team for the day and we did a great job definitely. We are losing as a team and winning as a team.”
Esapekka Lappi and Enni Malkonen ended seventh after a clean run, with the experienced Finn at a loss to explain his lack of pace all day.
One tenth of a second behind the Hyundai is Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy in their M-Sport Ford Puma after a clean run that saw the Irish pair set some solid stage times on their way to eighth place on the leaderboard.
Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, the championship leaders, were hammered by running first on the road and they haemorrhaged time, ending the day 49.8 seconds off the pace. Evans will start Saturday running third on the road, which doesn’t bode well for the Welshman.
Rounding out the top ten was Jon Armstrong and Shayne Byrne who suffered a flat tyre in the rally’s opening stage. The damage removed a chunk of bodywork and associated aero pieces, leaving the M-Sport rookie on the back foot on the ultra-high-speed stages.
Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo lead WRC2 by 2.5 seconds as they seek back-to-back home victories. A host of Finns follow, headed by Teemu Suninen, Roope Korhonen and Emil Lindholm.
Saturday features a mammoth nine stages and nigh on 150km of flat out rallying…
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