Neuville fastest in Ypres Rally Shakedown

Last yeat´s Ypres Rally winner and the local fans home hero Thierry Neuville went fastest through the Nieuwkerke Shakedown stage held as the rally warm-up on Thursday afternoon, he edged the current championship points leader Kalle Rovanperä by just 0.6 of a second.

The Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team seems to be strong ahead of the rally, the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 has been proven to be a great car on tarmac stages and it showed well during the shakedown as Oliver Solberg, who hopes to get his luck turned around in Ypres, went third fastest 0.7 second behind Rovanperä. However, Toyota Gazoo Racing´s Elfyn Evans also posted a similar time on his last pass and that means both Solberg and Evans are sharing the third place.

Craig Breen was the fastest out of the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team drivers, with 0.3 second behind Solberg and Evans, and Toyota´s Esapekka Lappi 0.1 second behind in sixth. Adrien Fourmaux also in a M-Sport built Ford Puma Rally1 went seventh fastest with 0.5 second behind. Rally Finland winner Ott Tänak had to settle for a eight fastest time just 0.2 second slower than Fourmaux and rounding-up of the Rally1 drivers in top 10 were Toyota´s NG driver Takamoto Katsuta in ninth and M-Sport´s Gus Greensmith in tenth.

In the WRC2 support category it is also another home hero who tops as the local wildcard Sébastien Bedoret edged the returning Stéphane Lefebvre.

Ypres Rally Shakedown top 15: