In addition to the actual European Championship rally, attention has also turned to WRC stars Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans, who are preparing for the next World Championship round at the Rally Islas Canarias, held on the tarmac roads of the Canary Islands at the end of April.
Neuville, driving for Hyundai, and Evans, behind the wheel of Toyota’s Rally1 car, are competing outside the European Championship classification and start the special stages after the ERC competitors. On Saturday morning’s loop, one stage was left undriven by the WRC stars, as the fourth stage of the rally was interrupted due to British driver Philip Allen crashing out.
Neuville has started the rally slightly stronger than Evans. After four stages, the Belgian leads the Welshman by a narrow 3.9 seconds. As expected, the Rally1 duo have been the fastest pairing in the event. The third-fastest so far has been Spanish driver Alejandro Cachón. Also competing outside the EM series, Cachón is driving a Toyota Rally2 car and trails Neuville by 27.2 seconds.
Russian Nikolay Gryazin, who leads the European Championship standings, has lost 34.2 seconds to Neuville after four stages. Neuville and Evans still have three more Andalusian tarmac stages to tackle on Saturday. On the rally’s final day, Sunday, six more special stages await.
According to Neuville, this is a very important test event, even though the roads in Córdoba don’t exactly match the characteristics of the Canary Islands stages.
“I’ve only had one day of driving here, but I’ve regained some of the feeling with the car on tarmac again. We knew there was still a bit of work to do on the new chassis to improve it, and I think we did a good job. That’s why we took this opportunity this weekend, even though it’s not very similar to Gran Canaria,” Neuville told to Spanish newspaper AS Diario.
“Let’s see their (Evans) times. But honestly, I haven’t prepared for this rally as well as I do for the World Championship. I discovered the stages yesterday, I didn’t watch any videos, and we’re here to work on the car. We need to learn, so it will be interesting to see the times. I’ll be able to judge whether we’re slower or faster, but the goal is to feel comfortable in the car.”
