Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team is looking to fight back following a challenging first full day at Rally Sweden, which ended with Elfyn Evans in fourth place and Kalle Rovanperä in fifth.

The snow-covered stages around Umeå are some of the fastest of the season and the GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID drivers were involved in a very close lead battle throughout the Friday morning loop of three stages. Running first on the road, overnight leader Rovanperä lost time in the morning’s opening stage sweeping loose snow but then set the fastest time in SS3 and was only 4.7 seconds off the lead in fourth overall at the end of the morning.

Just a few seconds behind in fifth was Takamoto Katsuta who also had a strong morning, claiming a stage win in SS4. Unfortunately, in SS5 he would be caught out by the snowbanks that line the road, causing him to roll. He was able to finish the stage and continue onto SS6, but had to stop because of damage to the cooling package at the front of the car. The team will inspect the damage and attempt to repair the car so Katsuta can restart tomorrow.

Evans was sixth at the end of the morning and showed more confidence and pace in the afternoon after making a setup change during mid-day service. Second-fastest in SS6, he climbed up to fourth overall and is 26.5s from the lead tonight.

Rovanperä’s road position was more of a disadvantage in the afternoon on rutted roads but he ended the day with a repeat of his Thursday night stage win in the Umeå Sprint test, and is 4.6s behind Evans overall.

Dolgellau driver Evans said: "It was not a strong morning at all from our side, as I was struggling with the balance and not able to find full confidence.

"This afternoon was better; we made some changes to the car setup at lunchtime that seem to have improved the feeling a bit.

"So overall I’m happy with how the afternoon went but still we are not really where we would have wanted to be.

"We’re definitely going to keep trying our all. The stages are technical and it’s easy to be caught out, so anything can happen. We just need to keep fighting and hopefully continue to climb the leaderboard tomorrow.”

Today Elfynsis the longest day of the rally with 126.22 competitive kilometres across a similar format to Friday. A repeated loop of three stages begins with two new tests: Norrby and Floda, which is the most northerly stage of the rally and also the longest at 28.25 kilometres. This is followed by the more familiar Sävar, where the second pass gets underway after sunset, before the Umeå stage – a double-length version of the already-used Umeå Sprint – rounds out the day.