Rally Sweden – Craig Breen is enjoying himself but Ott Tänak is chasing him closely

Lately we have been accustomed to writing information about Craig Breen (Hyundai) lorsqu’il commettait des impairs de pilotage. Mais le pilote irlandais a démontré une bien meilleure facette de son talent en dominant la première étape du Rally de Sweden 2023, contested this Friday February 10.

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The Hyundai Motorsport driver was undoubtedly the most impressive of all on a terrain where the ice and snow sometimes gave way to dirt, causing wear on the studded tires. Certainly, the former pilot M-Sport and Citroën took advantage of a better starting position, but above all it faced a Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford) lifted like never before!

“I had a perfect starting position, of course, and we tried to make the most of it, declares the one who had no longer led a round WRC from New Zealand in 2022. I have almost as much fun as in historic races! »

The Estonian signed his first scratch time for Malcolm Wilson's team in 2023 and led the competition for a while, before the last specials contested at night in Sweden. The 2019 World Rally Champion (WRC) is only a handful of seconds behind Craig Breen, but his attitude was half-baked.

"It's much better than we expected, said Ott Tänak. In terms of results, it is very positive. But the problem is that we can do much better than that! »

Sur la troisième marche du podium provisoire se trouve un Esapekka Lappi (Hyundai) bien solitaire. Le Finlandais n’ira pas chercher le duo de tête, surtout que son équipier Craig Breen s’occupe des chances de victoire, et il possède un petit matelas d’avance sur ses poursuivants (et anciens équipiers) du Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Setting off with the burden of opening the track, Kalle Rovanperä created an illusion on two special stages, those where the layer of ice was the heaviest. The defending champion will have difficulty achieving another victory in Scandinavia due to his delay of more than half a minute. We will see if the better starting position he will benefit from on Saturday morning will change this dynamic.

The two-time reigning world vice-champion Elfyn Evans, for his part, was completely transparent, as was Thierry Neuville (Hyundai). Both men have never been on the pace of the best and are constantly losing time, due to chronic understeer.

This stage left one victim: Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota). The Japanese was in the top 5 when a driving error threw him into a snowdrift at the start of the second loop, which sent him into a roll. It is not certain that we will see him again on Saturday because the mechanics must assess the damage to the Yaris, particularly to the roll bar and the engine.

The only Frenchman registered with a Rally1, Pierre-Louis Loubet (M-Sport Ford), stood out by setting a second best time in SS5. The Habs believe “to be able to be happy with (S)a progress », because he has the merit of not having made any mistakes on tricky terrain, while his lack of experience puts him at a disadvantage in this category.

In WRC2, Oliver Solberg (Skoda) goes solo. The son of Petter Solberg was greatly helped by the troubles of his adversaries Emil Lindholm (Skoda, +1'40'' in a wall of snow) and Teemu Suninen (Hyundai, mechanical problem).

General classification Rally Sweden 2023 after Stage 1: