Tänak wins Germany shakedown

Ott Tänak led a Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2 in Thursday morning’s shakedown at ADAC Rallye Deutschland.

Coming off the back of a dominant victory in Finland last month, the Estonian quickly mastered the change from gravel to asphalt to stop the clocks 0.2sec quicker than Jari-Matti Latvala in the 5.52km St Wendeler Land speed test.

“We did only one run, came back to service and went again. Obviously we’ve not been driving on asphalt for quite a long time. We tested before Rally Finland so we had to do a few changes for this kind of country roads,” said the Yaris World Rally Car driver.

“The feeling was good and we had a good balance. The changes were just to the chassis, nothing too big. The balance was quite close to what I wanted, so it was just a bit of small fine-tuning.”

Sébastien Ogier was fastest through the opening two passes in his Ford Fiesta, before Tänak moved top of the standings in his third and final run.

Ogier’s last attempt was the fastest of his trio and looked good enough for second until Latvala demoted him in his fourth and final run. The gap between them was 0.4sec.

Championship leader Thierry Neuville was a tenth slower than Ogier in fourth, 0.2sec clear of Hyundai i20 team-mate Dani Sordo. Craig Breen, driving a Citroën C3, and Elfyn Evans, in a Fiesta, were tied in sixth.

Mads Østberg spun his C3 during his first pass while both Sordo and Ogier hit hay bales.

The top 10:

1. Ott Tänak Toyota Yaris 2min 52.9sec
2. Jari-Matti Latvala Toyota Yaris + 0.2sec
3. Sébastien Ogier Ford Fiesta + 0.6sec
4. Thierry Neuville Hyundai i20 + 0.7sec
5. Dani Sordo Hyundai i20 + 0.9sec
6= Craig Breen Citroën C3 + 1.4sec
6= Elfyn Evans Ford Fiesta + 1.4sec
8. Esapekka Lappi Toyota Yaris + 1.8sec
9. Mads Østberg Citroën C3 + 2.5sec
10. Teemu Suninen Ford Fiesta + 3.0sec