The fifth round of the World Rally Championship (WRC), Vodafone Rally Portugal, got off to an exciting start today with a big surprise. Mārtiņš Sesks, driving a Ford Puma Rally1, set the fastest time during the shakedown session. On his fourth run of the 5.72 km Baltar stage, he clocked a 3:52.3.
Right behind him was Kalle Rovanperä, just 0.6 seconds slower, followed by Thierry Neuville, 0.9 seconds behind. Sébastien Ogier, the most successful driver in the history of Rally de Portugal with six wins, finished fourth. Ott Tänak came fifth and Elfyn Evans took sixth place. The rest of the top group included McErlean, Katsuta, Fourmaux, Pajari, and Munster. M-Sport’s fourth entry, Salvi, finished 18th, behind the top WRC2 drivers.
Rally Action Begins
After the ceremonial start in Coimbra, the rally officially kicked off with the Figueira da Foz super special stage at 19:05. Elfyn Evans claimed the first stage win with a time of 2 minutes 18.1 seconds. Tänak and Ogier both followed closely, just 0.2 seconds behind. Fourmaux came in fourth, 0.4 seconds off the pace, while Neuville finished fifth, 0.6 seconds behind.
In the WRC2 category, Gus Greensmith was fastest with 2:23.6, narrowly beating Daprà by 0.1 seconds and Yohan Rossel by 0.2 seconds.
A Tough Rally Ahead
This year’s Rally Portugal covers 344.50 km across 24 stages. There are also some new changes this year, including a remote service zone instead of the usual tire fitting zone, and two brand-new stages on Friday.
Every day, the first car is scheduled to leave Parc Fermé at 6:00 AM. With stages finishing quite late each day – parc fermé in at 21:05 on Friday, and just an hour earlier at 20:05 on Saturday – the long days may take a toll on the drivers. The limited time between the end of one day and the start of the next leaves little room for proper rest , adding an extra layer of difficulty to an already demanding rally.
Rovanperä said, “The timetable is a bit too much. We have a lot of kilometres, which is okay, but the days are really long”.
Even though it’s exhausting, drivers know it comes with the territory. As Grégoire Munster put it, pushing drivers to the limit is “part of rallying”.
Evans Faces a Tough Day
Elfyn Evans, who is currently leading the championship, has the extra challenge of starting first on the road for Friday’s leg. This position can be tricky because the road is often looser and slower for the first car.
He admitted, “It’s not easy to open the road here, but we’ll do our best with the situation”.