Neuville and Evans tied for the fastest time on Japan Shakedown

Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans both posted a similar time on the Thursday morning Shakedown of Kuragaike Park Reverse in Rally Japan with a time of 2:04.6 on the fourth attempt through the stage.

The pair posted identical times on the 2.8 kilometers warm-up, a stage which is also quite technical same as the afternoon stage that following up on the schedule for the day. Neuville was really on good form in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 early on the morning as the Belgian went fastest through on the first run and was bettering his time over the next passes but the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 driver responded late on the session and matched the time on the last run.

The Spain winner and eight-time world rally champion Sébastien Ogier claimed third fastest with just five-tenths further back. The two M-Sport cars of Craig Breen and Gus Greensmith locked out the fourth and fifth place also with identical times followed by the 2022 WRC champion Kalle Rovanperä in sixth.

The current championship runner-up Ott Tänak, who will be leaving Hyundai after Sunday clinched seventh over his Spanish teammate Dani Sordo while the local home hero Takamoto Katsuta also posted a similar time as Sordo and the 2022 WRC2 title contender Emil Lindholm rounded up the top ten.

Shakedown result (top 10)