WITH the second day of Rally de Portugal set to get underway, Dolgellau driver Elfyn Evans is second overall and just six seconds away from the lead after a battling first day for the Toyota Yaris WRC drivers.

Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä fill positions four to six on the leaderboard heading into the longest day of the rally today.

Eight stages made up the opening day of the first gravel rally of the 2021 season, based mainly in the area around Arganil to the south of the service park in Porto.

With no mid-day service, the crews had to look after their cars and had limited opportunities to make changes.

The morning loop of stages was a challenging one for the team, not helped by the road-sweeping effect that favoured cars starting further down the runner order.

An improved performance followed in the afternoon, beginning with Rovanperä posting the fastest time in SS4.

Another stage win came in a dramatic SS7: the only run over the returning Mortágua test. This was ultimately shared between Ogier and Evans after the latter was delayed in the dust of another competitor and had his time adjusted accordingly.

That meant that Evans moved up into second overall and he ended the day six seconds away from the leader.

Elfyn said: “It’s been a long and difficult day out there.

“We’ve had the new gravel tyres to get to grips with and it’s been tough to make the right choices.

“It was quite damp this morning but we’re very limited with how many soft tyres we have.

“We were quite often mixing tyres and therefore it’s been difficult to feel totally comfortable behind the wheel.

“But we seemed to have escaped trouble when others have found it, and on the back of that we find ourselves in a really strong position overnight.

“I struggled a bit for consistency this morning, but after that it was a bit better this afternoon and now we’re looking to make some small improvements to try and fight for that win over the rest of the rally.

“It’s going to be a challenging day tomorrow but I’m looking forward to it.”

End of day one (Friday):

1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) 1h22m35.0s

2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota Yaris WRC) +6.0s

3 Dani Sordo/Borja Rozada (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +9.0s

4 Takamoto Katsuta/Dan Barritt (Toyota Yaris WRC) +15.4s

5 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota Yaris WRC) +24.0s

6 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota Yaris WRC) +28.9s

7 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (Ford Fiesta WRC) +1m02.3s

8 Adrien Fourmaux/Renaud Jamoul (Ford Fiesta WRC) +1m33.5s

9 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5) +3m34.9s

10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5) +3m37.1s

What’s next?

Saturday is the longest day of the rally, made up of 165.16 competitive kilometres. The action is concentrated on the Cabreira mountains to the north-east of Porto with a loop of three stages run either side of service, before a new coastal street test in Porto alongside the mouth of the Douro river rounds out the day.