Kopecky surprises, Meeke makes a mistake in Germany

A little over two kilometers were on the program for the first special of the Rally from Germany this Thursday evening. Drawn in the streets of Saarbruck, this short ES nevertheless caused the first damage in the peloton of entrants in WRC, with the setbacks of Kris Meeke.

The start was catastrophic for the Citroën driver, since the Briton hit a concrete wall and damaged his vehicle at the right front wheel. Meeke was forced to stop on the track and the #3 C7 was evacuated by a tow truck, delaying the progress of the event. The driver of the chevron brand will start again in Rally2 tomorrow.

@krismeeke´s end of SS1  #ADACRallyDeutschland #adacralyehub #WRC Watch the full Re-Live on WRC+ pic.twitter.com/xYe6jSpC4L

— WRC (@OfficialWRC) August 17

On the chrono side, Ott Tänak (Ford) showed itself to be the fastest for a long time, before seeing Jan Kopecky (Skoda Fabia R5) creates a surprise by beating all the 2017 WRCs in 2'05″9. The Czech precedes Tänak by three tenths and 1″3 Craig Breen, best representative of the Citroën clan.

The four-time world champion Sébastien Ogier (Ford Fiesta) ranks fourth at 1″9, tied with Andreas Mikkelsen (Citroën). “The real fight starts tomorrow, but we saw this evening that it was tricky, admits the pilot M-Sport. You couldn't win the rally tonight, but you could lose it. »

The first Toyota Yaris of Jari-Matti Latvala climbs into sixth position ahead of Elfyn Evans (Ford) and the Hyundai i20 by Dani Sordo, Thierry Neuville and Hayden Paddon. “I didn't have a good feeling about this stage after what I saw with Meeke, underlines Neuville. I was careful. This is the first time that I have opened a rally as leader of the championship. »

Yoann Bonato (Citroën DS3 R5) finished 11th ahead of the Toyota Yaris of Juho Hänninen and Esapekka Lappi.

Rally Germany ranking