Evans fastest on Portugal Shakedown stage

Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin earned themselves a much needed confidence boost by recording the fastest pass of 2min 56.1sec through Thursday morning’s 4.62km Shakedown stage at Paredes.

The Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 driver posted his fastest time on a third run through the stage to edge out M-Sport Ford’s Craig Breen and Paul Nagle by 0.4 seconds. Hyundai’s Ott Tänak was classified in third place in his i20 N Rally1.

Teemu Suninen topped the WRC2 times with a second run of 3min 93.5sec. Oliver Solberg and Marco Bulacia were second and third.

Kalle Rovanperä was the first driver of the hybrid era to tackle a competitive gravel special stage and the young Finn stopped the clocks in 2min 59.5sec, his time being equalled minutes later by Thierry Neuville. The Finn said: “It was not too bad. On the hard tyres it is interesting in the first pass conditions and we had a big slide on the tarmac.”

Sébastien Loeb added: “I am trying to find a rhythm again, not a lot of testing but we will try and work a bit this morning.“

Sordo was quickest on the first pass (2min 58.3sec), where Gus Greensmith complained of having no hybrid and Sébastien Ogier was suffering from intercom issues. “It was a bit slippery in the morning with hard tyres,” admitted the current World Champion.

Rovanperä hit the front on his second pass with a 2min 57.7sec, only to be overtaken again by Pierre-Louis Loubet and Tänak and then Evans with a second run of 2min 57.1sec.

Loeb continued to improve on each of his runs, but Neuville was the first driver to go under the 2min 57sec barrier on his third pass and the Belgian topped the times with a 2min 56.9sec run.

However, his lead was short-lived and Breen shaved four-tenths of a second off that soon afterwards. Evans then topped the times again after his third and final run with a time of 2min 56.1sec.