Ott Tanak takes two WRC Rally Sweden stage wins on opening morning – WRC

Ott Tanak scored two stage wins on the World Rally Championship’s opening morning of Rally Sweden, the Toyota driver establishing a 5.5s lead over a tight battle for second place.

Running third on the road, Tanak took wins on Hof-Finnskog and Rojden, with second placed Teemu Suninen breaking his streak with fastest time on Svullrya, the longest stage of the rally.

M-Sport’s Suninen is locked in an extremely close battle for position with Jari-Matti Latvala and Thierry Neuville, the overnight leader after last night’s Karlstad superspecial.

Climbing from fifth place, Latvala picked off Neuville and Sebastien Ogier to finish the Friday morning loop in third, a mere 0.1s off Suninen. Neuville has now dropped to fourth, albeit only 0.4s off Latvala and still within 6s of Tanak.

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Reigning world champion Sebastien Ogier was surprised with the amount of grip available given concerns over warm temperatures affecting road conditions, though appeared to struggle with running as first car on the road regardless.

Though the Citroen team leader made a reasonable start in Hof-Finnskog, he only managed the seventh and eighth fastest times in the third and fourth stages respectively, dropping to fifth, 14.4s off the lead.

Ogier is now falling into the clutches of team-mate Esapekka Lappi, who ended the loop 0.4s behind him in sixth. Andreas Mikkelsen is a further 2.5s behind in the second Hyundai.

Kris Meeke is eighth, with gaps already forming to both Mikkelsen ahead and Sebastien Loeb behind. Ninth-placed Loeb is locked in a battle with Elfyn Evans, who dropped time when clipping a snowbank on Hof-Finnskog sent him into a spin and cost him time. The pair are now separated by only 1.6s.

M-Sport’s third car struggled throughout Friday morning. Pontus Tidemand’s wipers failed on Hof-Finnskog and he arrived at stop controls revving his engine thereafter. He dropped upwards of 15s per stage relative to the leaders, ending the morning loop 11th and over a minute behind rally leader Tanak.

Five-time Rally Sweden winner Marcus Gronholm’s return to the WRC ended early, ploughing through a snowbank and and into the forest on Rojden. Both he and co-driver Timo Rautiainen were unharmed, though their privateer Toyota Yaris was stuck and they went no further.

It had been a tricky reintroduction to the world rally arena for Gronholm, who had also clipped snowbanks and spun in the previous two stages before his retirement.

Factory Citroen entrant Mads Ostberg leads WRC2 Pro, inheriting the position after Skoda’s Kalle Rovanpera clipped a snowbank, spun and became stuck, losing over two minutes.

Leading positions after SS4