Youngsters star at Rally Finland

Rookie Esapekka Lappi has stunned the rally fraternity by leading his home event, while another young Finn Teemu Suninen sits in third behind the highly experienced Jari-Matti Latvala.

As good as it was for the locals, the same couldn’t be said for championship leader Sebastien Ogier who crashed heavily, while Hayden Paddon’s day ended early with suspension damage, Ott Tanak had a time-consuming puncture and Thierry Neuville struggled for pace to be in eighth.

Paddon will re-join the event under Rally 2 for Saturday’s action, while M-Sport is confident of having Ogier back in the event, but this will depend on the health of co-driver Julien Ingrassia who did visit hospital after the heavy impact.

No such issues for Lappi, who came into the event as the third Toyota driver, but quickly showed that he would be on the pace winning eight of the day’s 12 timed stages to lead by 4.4-sec from a Rally Finland master in Latvala.

“I could never have imagined I would be leading Rally Finland,” said Lappi.

“Just competing here in a World Rally Car has been a dream I have had since I was a small boy. That I am leading is hard to comprehend.

“But it’s been a really clean run so far with no mistakes and the car has been perfect. I’ve given it my all. I won’t force myself to fight against Jari-Matti if it means I will take too many risks.”

Latvala led after Ott Tanak yielded the early initiative when he swiped some rocks and punctured his Fiesta’s right rear tyre. The Estonian lost more than 90sec to end 10th.

Suninen in only his second drive in a full specification WRC car shared the limelight with two stage wins for the 23-year-old in an M-Sport Fiesta.

“I would say that my main strength is that I seem to be improving quite quickly,” said Suninen.

“Hopefully we can continue that and someday be fighting for the victory myself. That is not the objective this weekend – I just want to focus on myself and forget about my Finnish friends ahead.”

Craig Breen, Juho Hanninen and Mads Ostberg joined the battle for a podium place. Brake problems and handling issues delayed Breen’s Citroen C3 and the Irishman was fourth, 14.0sec behind Suninen.

Hanninen provided more Finnish delight, but was lucky to hold onto fifth when he hit a rock and damaged the rear left suspension mounting on his Yaris.

With Ogier dropping out on the day, it should have been a bonus for Neuville. However, he never threatened the leaders and after a day of poor performance is looking ahead to Saturday.

“Tomorrow is a huge day. We should be faster than this, but I couldn’t do more,” said Neuville.

Hyundai team-mate Hayden Paddon was fast early, but simply running wide and hitting a rock ended his hopes.

“I think we were a little bit unfortunate to pick up the damage we did, a bit of continuation of the bad luck we’ve had this year,” said Paddon.

“But nevertheless we know the speed was there, the car’s been easily able to be repaired and we’ll be able to re-join for tomorrow, to go back out there and try and set some competitive times, build and develop for the future.

“It’s certainly not a loss. There’s a lot of rallying left yet and we’ve just got to stay positive and keep pushing forward.”

Saturday packs in eight more gravel stages split into two identical loops of 132.34 competitive kilometres. It includes the classic rollercoaster Ouninpohja, regarded as the sport’s biggest test of bravery and commitment.

VIDEO: Morning Stages

VIDEO: Afternoon Stages

POSITIONS: Rally Finland – Leg 1