Elfyn Evans made a solid start as Rally Estonia got underway with a short super special stage near the service park in Tartu yesterday, where the top seven drivers were separated by less than a second.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver from Dolgellau will be confident going into today’s 139.18 competitive kilometres spread across two loops of four stages, the longest day of the rally.

The loop begins with Peipsiääre (the longest stage of the weekend at 24.35 km) and Mustvee to the north of Tartu, followed by Raanitsa and Vastsemõisa to the south.

Earlier on Thursday was the pre-event shakedown, providing the chance to make final adjustments to car setup for the high-speed gravel roads.

The GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID has received an engine upgrade and a revised rear wing as the team seeks to improve the car’s outright performance.

The wet conditions in shakedown also gave the drivers the opportunity to get to grips with damp roads, given that further rain is forecast for the rally.

TGR’s Esapekka Lappi posted the best time with his fourth and final pass of the shakedown, with team-mates Kalle Rovanperä third and Elfyn Evans fifth. Following a ceremonial start in Tartu itself, the competitive action began with a 1.66-kilometre super special, run in the opposite direction to last year.

Rovanperä set the second-fastest time, just 0.1 seconds from the pace, with Evans another tenth of a second back in third.

Lappi was sixth, within 0.7s of first, while Takamoto Katsuta was one place further behind and only 0.9s off the fastest time in his TGR WRT Next Generation entry.

Evans said: “It was a short stage to start the rally tonight but it was very twisty and lined with rocks, so we had to try and be precise.

“Shakedown this morning was good. The rain came down and we hadn’t really tested in such conditions, but immediately from the first run I felt quite comfortable.

“It’s always exciting to do these high-speed events but there will still be some learning to do with the car. The weather is also looking pretty unsettled and it’s quite difficult to know how the stages will be affected.”