At the end of the opening day of the Rally Japan, the Citroën Junior Team has both of its C4WRCs in the top 10. After an excellent start to the rally, Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo are fifthoverall, just over 30 seconds behind the leaders. Kimi Räikkönen and Kaj Lindström claim 10th,having made solid progress all day.
After some great performances on Thursday’s first two runs over the superspecial stages, Dani Sordo gotstuck straight into the fight for first place throughout the opening loop of stages that took place thismorning to the south of the island of Hokkaido. “The roads are very nice, with some extremely quick andnarrow sections,” he reported. “I experienced a little bit of understeer on the car and so I suddenly foundmyself losing some time in the twisty bits of the following stage. The second loop is not going to be anyeasier, but we need to keep on pushing hard to stay with the lead group.”
After more than a month without driving the Citroën C4 WRC on gravel, Kimi Räikkönen got off to acautious start. With the help of the Citroën Junior Team technicians, the Finn tried to find various differentset-ups that would help him to make progress.
His engineer, Cédric Mazenq, explained: “During midday service, we changed the front differential,adjusted the ride height, modified the spring rates and altered a few other settings. In the afternoon, Kimifelt a lot more comfortable. As there was no specific test for this rally, we needed this half-day to findsome settings best suited to his driving style.”
Kimi Räikkönen managed to decrease his gap to the frontrunners over the second passage through thestages in the afternoon. In particular, he improved his time over the 27.76-kilometre Sikot stage by awhole 28.2 seconds. “The team did a great job at service,” commented Kimi. “I still have a lot to learnbefore I can go quickly on these roads. The progress we have made this afternoon means that we will beable to start the second day with confidence.”
Dani Sordo was the victim of an oil leak before the start of Iwanke 2 (SS6). He nonetheless managed toend the day in fifth place, just 36.5 seconds behind the leader. “We tried to lose as little time as possiblebut the car was less efficient,” he recounted. “I’m very happy that we were able to get back to service inSapporo, and looking at our overall classification, it didn’t go so badly for us in the end. Tomorrow we’llhave a good start position, so our plan is to attack!”
Dani’s engineer, Clément Mitchell, explained: “All the oil in the gearbox gradually leaked out. Thismeant that the front differential did not work as well as it should. But by adapting his driving style, Daniwas able to deal with the resulting understeer very well. We thought that he would lose more time thanhe actually did.”
Team manager Benoit Nogier concluded: “The team did a really good job on Kimi’s C4 WRC. He wasable to show his capabilities much better on the second loop of stages, with a car that gave him moreconfidence. On the other hand, we are sorry to have experienced a technical problem on Dani’s car. Heshowed the strength of his character by the way that he dealt with this complicated situation. Between eachstage, he tried to fix the problem. His positive attitude gives us reason to feel optimistic. Dani will have agood road position tomorrow, and I really hope that we will be seeing him on the podium by Sundayafternoon!”
.Classification at end of day one:
1. P. Solberg / Patterson Citroën C4 1:13’31’’22. Hirvonen / Lehtinen Ford Focus +9’’43. Ogier / Ingrassia Citroën C4 +21’’34. Latvala / Anttila Ford Focus +22’’45. Sordo / Marti Citroën C4 +36’’56. Loeb / Elena Citroën C4 +54’’57. H. Solberg / Minor Ford Focus +1’22’’28. Wilson / Martin Ford Focus +3’16’’99. Villagra / Perez Companc Ford Focus +3’46’’510. Räikkönen / Lindström Citroën C4 +4’03’’1…
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