The day featured ten special stages, and depending on how you measure it, the drivers spent 13 to 14 hours in the car. The day began at the crack of dawn, and most didn’t return to bed until well after sunset.
Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä sharply criticised the organisers’ decision to stretch the day out so long. His teammate Sébastien Ogier, however, took a more measured stance.
“Like I just said, I think if you ask all the drivers, the answer is going to be, ‘Yeah, we’ve done worse before,’” Ogier began, weighing his words.
So yeah, I’ve done some rallies with intense schedules before, and I would maybe not go as far as calling it a safety issue because, in the end, we are also professional athletes and I think we are prepared to handle things like this,” Ogier reflected.
If the day felt long for the drivers, it surely did for the fans as well. It’s fair to ask how many rally fans can realistically follow an event from early morning until late at night.
“But for the sport in general, I’m not sure if it’s super interesting, because I don’t believe fans follow from seven in the morning to eight at night,” Ogier said.
“Maybe if you manage to be a bit more clever with the itinerary and try to make it more compact, it’s probably more beneficial for the sport. So yeah, it’s been a little bit too long for everybody,” the Frenchman added.
Ogier’s teammate Elfyn Evans echoed similar sentiments.
“I think the way it’s been done is not ideal, obviously. We have two 15-minute regroups during the day, and five minutes of those is for technical checks, so you can’t even finish eating whatever it is that you have. And of course, we left at 5 a.m. this morning, so yeah, it’s not ideal,” Evans said bluntly.
Hyundai’s Ott Tänak was more concise in his reaction to the long Friday schedule, switching into full sarcasm mode:
“Beautiful,” Tänak smirked when asked about the day’s programme.
