Leading the WRC, Neuville was in good form as he clocked the fastest times on three of the morning’s four special stages. This put the Hyundai star 8.6 seconds ahead of Toyota’s Elfyn Evans overall.
“We expected that the road conditions would give us a bit of an advantage this morning. So, we benefited from it, and we did what we could.” Neuville said.
“It wasn’t that easy, to be honest. I was fighting a bit with the car, I wasn’t 100% confident. And it made the morning a bit more difficult than what we hoped for, but generally, it was a clean run,” Neuville told RallyJournal.com.
As the lead car, Neuville managed to cause a little trouble for Evans, who started after him. Neuville got to drive on clean tarmac surfaces, but as he cut corners, mud was thrown onto the track, which worsened conditions for the following cars.
“I expected Elfyn to be as fast as us because after one car, the road is still quite okay. But it just takes a few corners where I pull out a bit of mud, and he brakes a little bit more and loses time,” Neuville said.
The same special stages will be run again in the afternoon. At that time, Neuville will no longer have the same advantage.
“It didn’t feel so great this morning. Sometimes I was just a little bit too slow. So hopefully we’re going to make up for that especially this afternoon when it will be more dirty for me as well. It would give me more confidence,” the Belgian explained.
