Daylight was just breaking at 7:15am as the first WRC crews pulled out of the service park in Corte for the short drive to the shakedown stage. The sample test took the form of 3.88km climb from Poggio di Venaco which was quite fast once past the first two hairpins.
As predicted, there was heavy rain overnight in Corsica, so the conditions are consequently very wet this morning and several trucks and motorhomes have sunk into the soft ground! When Sébastien Ogier started the shakedown stage at 7:30am, the surrounding mountains were covered in thick fog, but the rain had stopped.
Fastest after the first runs was Robert Kubica (Ford, 2m24.3s) who was second off the line to beat early chasers Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo (Hyundai) by almost a second. Ogier was 10th at this point (+4.4s), while Ott Tanak (Ford) reported a spin.
Kubica improved by a second per kilometre on his next run (2m20.5s), this time tailed by Ogier and Kris Meeke (Citroën) who posted identical efforts. The Pole’s third attempt saw him lower the benchmark to 2m19.0s before times started to rise again as the conditions became muddier.
Meeke (Citroën) managed to close the gap to Kubica to 0.8s, while Ogier (VW) ended up fourth, ahead of Sordo (Hyundai), Mads Ostberg (Citroën), Kevin Abbring (Hyundai), Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) and Andreas Mikkelsen (VW) who were covered by eight-tenths.
Elfyn Evans (Ford), and Hayden Paddon (Hyundai) finished in the 2m22s bracket, followed by Stéphane Lefebvre (Citroën, 2m23.7s). Ott Tanak (Ford), Martin Prokop (Ford), Stéphane Sarrazin (Ford) and Bryan Bouffier (Ford) all failed to get beneath the 2m24s mark.
In WRC2, the best times were posted by Craig Breen (Peugeot) and Eric Camilli (Ford) after two runs.
The conditions are expected to remain wet for Friday’s action, even if the rain eases up this afternoon.
Crews will now drive south to Ajaccio for this afternoon’s ceremonial start.