Latvala of a very short head in Finland

The first step of Rally of Finland offered particularly tight gaps at the head of the race. At the end of the second pass, it is Jari-Matti Latvala (Toyota) who is in the lead with only 1”2 ahead of his teammate Kris Meeke. The Finn scored 3 new scratches in the afternoon (6 in total for the day out of the 10 stages contested).

The Yaris WRC unsurprisingly seem the most effective at the Rally Finland, the territory where they were developed, but local Esapekka Lappi managed to put his Citroën in the leading trio by being one second behind the Northern Irishman, while the former leader Ott Tänak (Toyota) fell to 4th place, 2 tenths behind the C3 WRC. The Estonian was slowed down by the change in surface following the passage of cars which made the courses more rough than in the morning.

Craig Breen (Hyundai) remains in 5th place leading the second group of the peloton. The Irishman remains under pressure from Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai) and Sébastien Ogier (Citroën) which follow it by a few tenths. The six-time champion seemed to be subject to a penalty for having anticipated the start of SS10, but the stewards have not yet mentioned an investigation into this subject.

In difficulty at the start of the day with his Hyundai, Thierry Neuville remains in 8th place ahead of the drivers M-Sport Teemu Suninen and Gus Greensmith.

Kalle Rovanperä (Skoda) masters his subject in WRC 2 Pro by moving to 11th place in the general classification with half a minute ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet (Skoda), also well established at the head of WRC 2 with a good lead on double World RX champion Johan Kritoffersson (Volkswagen), 5th in WRC 2, 2 minutes behind the category leader. Éric Camilli is well away from the head of the category as he debuts the new Fiesta R5.

The second stage of the Rally Finland will be made up of 8 special stages for a total of 132km timed. The day which should begin at 7:08 a.m. French time will be followed live with our live text.